Catch and Release
by musicnotes093
Summary: The Davenports and Torrance must set aside their differences and work together to rescue Leo. Meanwhile, Leo struggles against falling into the dark trenches of his corrupted memory to warn his family of the dangerous trap awaiting them. Sequel to Search and Destroy.
1. One

**Title:** _"__Catch and Release"_

**Rating:** T, for some intense scenes later on

**Genre:** Suspense, Friendship

**Character(s):** the Davenport household, Douglas and several OCs

**Pairing(s):** Donald/Tasha, Tasha/OC (you'll see how and why later on), Chase/OC, Adam/OC and Leo/Kerry

**Summary:** The Davenports and Torrance must set aside their differences and work together to rescue Leo. Meanwhile, Leo struggles against falling into the dark trenches of his corrupted memory to warn his family of the dangerous trap awaiting them. Sequel to Search and Destroy.

**Notes:** Gah, I can't believe it! It all started with an idea a year ago (one year ago, today, _Trial and Error_ was published!), which I decided to write with just for fun and just to have something new to read – and now here we are. This last lap towards the finish line is jam-packed and a little rocky, but I hope you love it as much as I do. Again, I'll try to make this as short as possible. This one's darker than the first two also, so just a head's up.

Oh! And also, it may seem later on in the story that there's some supernatural elements included here, but let me assure you that there won't be any of that. I don't dabble with that genre at all, so just know that things are not what they appear.

Other than that, enjoy!

* * *

_One._

_Drip._

_ Drip._

_ Drip._

Leo awakened to the sounds of water droplets hitting the floor. Using the little but sufficient amount of energy he had, he turned towards the source of the noise and found that one of the pipes at the opposite side of the room was leaking. Gauging the slightly cooler temperature of his surroundings, he slowly and carefully rolled onto his right and then used his elbow to support himself up. His body was still too weak; he was barely able to push himself up an inch off the floor on his first try before collapsing back down. But he was too determined to find out something, anything at all, about his situation—or at least his location—that giving up was not even an option.

Again, he tried and again, he failed. He took a deep breath. Then, bit by bit, he placed his weight on his arm while willing the muscles in his body to cooperate.

For the third time, he failed. Still, he found a degree of comfort that this time, he landed on his forearm, which was surprisingly steady in holding him up.

The smallest of smiles pulled on Leo's lips. He was almost absolute that if he had the energy for it, he would have laughed. It was ridiculous, he thought. He knew he would not win any trophy for body building anytime soon, but did he really not have enough muscles in his body to fulfill the simple task of sitting up? _Wow. Hitting an all-time low here,_ he thought.

The shadow of the happy expression vanished into vapor as the likely reason for his weakness occurred to him. Instinctively, he glanced at his left wrist. It was heavily bandaged and felt very sore. He tried to move it. Stabbing pain ascended up his arm, the sensation traveling quickly towards the bones of his neck and into his skull, and it nearly caused him to scream. He clenched his jaws shut to prevent himself from yelling, resulting in a muffled but loud groan.

Bad idea. That was a really bad idea.

After forcing his nerves to still, he refocused on the task he had at hand. Knowing that his left side presented no use for him at the moment, he placed a bit more pressure on his right arm as he pulled up his knees underneath him to gain more leverage for his body. Gradually, the dull gray floor increased in distance away from him, proving the success of his plan.

Leo took several deep breaths after he stopped. The task of rising on his hand and knees severely exhausted him, and though it frustrated him he understood that he needed to rest to conserve what might he had left. When he had enough, he looked up at the window—the only connection he had with the world outside.

He couldn't remember the last time he was awake. There had been too many dreams and too many flashes of reality that his sense of time had become somewhat unreliable. The last time he saw the scenery outside, it had been bright and tropical. It had been warmer too. Yet this time, everything was glum and overcrowded. Branches of trees appeared to hang low in shame, and the sky seemed to have just finished weeping.

Carefully, he swiveled to his left to sit, which was another simple thing that he remembered not being able to do. Afterwards, he started to look around the room. It was much bigger than what he had previously thought, but was as empty as he remembered. It was a wide room with a cement floor, cement walls and cement roof. The only interesting features were the window perched high above the opposite side of the room, the small opening some distance away from him, which he supposed was some kind of drainage, and the varying sizes of pipes opened towards the room.

"You're sitting up. That's good. That means you have enough energy."

Leo looked up at the person who spoke. He found Douglas standing a few feet away from him, his arms crossed, a wickedly pleased expression on his features.

Douglas observed him ponderously. "I'll probably monitor your vitals for now, just to make sure it won't be too much on you during the test period," he said. He smiled. "I need you healthy and undamaged for that one."

Leo glared.

Douglas began scanning the room. "Just in case you want to know, we're currently inside a simulation chamber," he said. "Yeah, I know. It doesn't look much, but that's the beauty of it. If we ever have to move, covering things up is not going to be a problem. All they'll see is another abandoned warehouse. I doubt they'd even have any idea what they're really standing inside of when they step in here."

"What makes you think I'm going with you?" Leo said, but his words came out as a mumble because that was only what his strength allowed.

Douglas smirked at him. "I don't have to think. I _know_ you're coming with us," he said. He nodded towards his bandaged wrist. "I made sure of it."

Leo looked down on his left wrist uncertainly.

"I wouldn't worry much about moving out of here, though," Douglas said. "The New Class is pretty tough to beat. I doubt that anyone would want to cross them after they find out what those three can do." He hitched a shoulder. "Well, if they're anything like Donald, absorbed in their own hero illusions, then yeah, they might. But if their lives are any important to them, then they probably shouldn't." He shot Leo another look before swiveling around then walking forward.

An electric current ran through a portion of the cement wall. The dull gray material dissolved into thin air, revealing a heavy metallic door behind it.

Before Douglas pushed it open, he stopped. "Hope that your family doesn't come for you," he said, his cold words bouncing off the iron. Then, he stepped out. Another electric current ran downwards the opening and soon, it was back to being another part of the wall.

Leo continued to stare with fear and uncertainty. There were so many unknowns that he was left feeling at a loss on what to do. He was still very weak. He was also very alone. These limited him much, especially the former. The threat on his family had increased, too, and the ambiguity surrounding how this was so decreased his room for movement more.

But he knew that he had gone too far to be defeated by mere excuses now. He had to do whatever it takes—for his parents, for his siblings and for Torrance.

Leo took a deep breath then looked down again on his left wrist. _Whatever it takes_, he resolved.

* * *

_to be continued._


	2. Two

_Much thanks to Lady Cougar-Trombone, AlienGhostWizard14, LabGirl2001, Jillie chan, AllAmericanSlurp, and Abbeytheauthor for the reviews! Super glad that you guys are as excited about this as I am! _

_Week late update, but there's a very good reason for it: I had to make sure information in these doesn't clash with future chapters (I'm halfway done with the story). :)_

* * *

_Two._

Torrance accessed the file with the utmost of focus. Opening it would not be difficult to do, but she did have to work a little bit more for it. She had encrypted these files the last time, just in case the flash drive it was installed in ended up in the wrong hands, which, honestly, she didn't think was likely. She also did it because it was a part of her repayment to him, to Leo, to protect such a sensitive information like that from anyone who could use it against his family.

That was six months ago, and now it was time to unearth it.

After a few more seconds into effortlessly bypassing the locks she had put on it, the file finally presented itself on the screen in front of her. "Here it is," she announced. "May I pull it up on the monitors, Donald Davenport?"

Donald looked up from the opposite side of the lab, from the other control panel where he had meticulously picked apart the recorder that the girl had said his stepson invented. "Fine," he said. "Just—"

Torrance clicked on a button at the desk, and it cued the schematics up on the screen.

Chase nodded at it, his arms crossed in front of him while a heavy frown rested on his features. "What's that?" he asked.

"Everything that Leo Dooley and I know about Project Deflection," Torrance said, standing up to face the screens behind her. "It is what we have based our plans on."

Donald placed down the tools he was using as the layout on the screen increasingly piqued his attention. He walked up to where Adam, Bree and Chase stood to get a closer look at it. He scanned the plans, and from the patterns he could tell that it was his brother who had put it together.

That, however, still didn't allay the suspicion he felt against the girl. He had only allowed her into the lab because it was necessary. There were many things she wanted to show them, many programs and files she wanted to explain, which the computers upstairs were not able to handle the night prior, that he had to give her access to the lab where the flow of data came faster and was much less limited. He still believed that his brother could have sent her there to set them up, yet Bree's insistence of reconsideration had persuaded him enough to listen to their unexpected guest albeit cautiously.

Torrance turned a few pages down the file by swiping her fingers across the desk. She stopped at the page depicting three figures. "Everything primarily focuses on these three unnamed subjects," she began. She swiped to the next page where the first figure was isolated. "The first subject is a male, with the known bionic abilities of super strength and laser vision."

"Known bionics?" Adam asked.

"Three other abilities had been omitted from the file," Torrance answered. Hesitatingly, she said, "Leo Dooley has told me that upgrades are possible?"

No answer came back to her, but she took it as an affirmative response.

"We determined that this first subject is you, Adam Davenport," Torrance said. She moved on to the next page. "The second subject is a female, with the known bionic ability of super speed. Again, the rest has been omitted, three in total." She turned towards Bree.

Bree nodded, staring at the blue print with irritation. "Me," she said. At that moment, she was beginning to feel weary too with Douglas' interference with their lives.

"The last subject is a male, with the only known bionic ability of molecular kinesis," Torrance said.

"Wait. Shouldn't Chase's known bionic ability be super intelligence? Or at least his enhanced senses?" Adam asked. "Those are the ones we knew of first."

Torrance slightly shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "It does seem odd, but I suppose Douglas Davenport only listed these ones because these are the most important in his plan."

"His plan of using us?" Bree asked, though she already knew the answer.

Leo had told her sufficient things about his siblings that Torrance was moved to feel pity for them. Yet, she knew that sympathy would not improve their circumstances. Instead, she turned a few more pages to answer Bree's question accurately. "There are three targets: two males, one female. They are constantly referred to as the V Class throughout," she said quietly. "The goal of the project is to eliminate them."

Once again, she was met with silence. This time, however, she knew it came about because the others were absorbing the details, more so now than they had when she had revealed it to them a few hours ago due to the blueprints that they were seeing in front of them.

Torrance picked up one of the laptops sitting on the floor as she sat down and placed it on her lap. "The main key of this project is the Triton App," she said as she typed in a few commands on the keyboards. "_Override Code_, actually. Leo Dooley was the one who figured out what it meant."

"So Leo had seen this," Donald said.

"Yes," Torrance said with a soft frown. She opened one of the files before connecting the laptop onto the desk. She pulled it up on the monitors. "This is the antivirus that was uploaded to Adam, Bree and Chase Davenport's chips. It's been modified to identify then eliminate the code and anything similar that Douglas Davenport might try to reintroduce into their systems in the future."

Donald looked at the codes on the screen. "For someone to be able to program an antivirus that will counteract the Triton App, that person needs to know first what to look for," he said. "You need a copy of it to be able to do that."

"Yes."

"So you have a copy of it?" Donald asked. His brows knitted tensely as something occurred to him. "_You_ broke into my system."

"No, I do not have a copy of the Triton App, and yes—" Torrance looked up, "I and a past acquaintance hacked into your company Friday morning."

Donald stared at her. An incredulous smile tugged at an edge of his mouth as he shook his head. "No, that – that doesn't sound possible," he said. "Against my IT team. And you're a teenager?"

Torrance smiled warmly. "So are your children, Donald Davenport," she said. "Yet they're capable of doing things that no other people can."

Donald nodded in acquiescence. "Fair enough," he said, turning back to the screen.

"As far as your team, they were not present when I hacked in," Torrance added when she realized something. "Perhaps who they had gone against is your stepson."

"Leo?"

Torrance nodded.

Chase shook his head broodingly, still wary against everything that Torrance tells them. "I don't think so," he disagreed. "Leo knew how to hack, but infiltrating Mr. Davenport's company from the outside would have been way out of his skill set."

A protective inclination quickly flared up somewhere within Torrance, and she had to put in much effort to control the vexation she felt. "I've taught him how to improve in it, and he had been quick in learning how to do certain things," she said evenly. However, unable to stop herself, she added bitingly, "He's very intelligent and capable on his own. He's not useless."

Taking a slight offense in what was said, Bree noted, "No one ever said he was."

Torrance continued to stare at the laptop on her lap, suddenly feeling pity on its missing owner. "Yet, that is what he feels," she muttered. She didn't bother to acknowledge the effect her words had on the others in the room. Instead, she disconnected the computer then placed it up on the desk, facing it towards Donald. "What you saw up on the screen is a backup. That is why it was incomplete," she told him. "I'm guessing that the flash drive containing the complete version of the antivirus is destroyed by now. Leo was not able to retrieve it."

"This is his?" Donald asked, walking up to the computer then picking it up.

"Yes," she answered. After Donald began maneuvering through the various files, she spoke again. "I suppose I will be limited to this area for the time being, while my credibility is being established?"

Donald glanced up at her.

"It does not bother me. I have nothing to hide," Torrance assured respectfully. She stood up. When she did, she caught sight of Linux. The dog was lounging peacefully under the mission specialist desk, seemingly content with the soft towel underneath him and the cool temperature in the lab. Torrance smiled. "However, he may not be as comfortable about it as I am," she said.

"I'll take him upstairs if he needs to get out," Adam volunteered, oblivious to the glares being darted his way by his younger siblings.

Torrance nodded at him, smiling appreciatively. Then, she proceeded towards the sofa at the other side of the room, where she thought they'd be the most comfortable for her to be at.

Chase watched her closely as she settled down, the heavy frown on his face still not departing. There were many things he wanted to settle, including the cutting comment she had made in response to his observation, but he knew it wasn't the proper time. He was still too confused and too angry, and he knew that the lack of tendency to think straight would disable him from dealing with things properly. "I'm going upstairs to check on Tasha," he said instead before heading to the elevator.

"I'm coming with you," Bree said, following after him.

Although he had no strong desire to, Adam went with his siblings, concluding that he needed to be with them.

After the three of them had gotten in, the elevator doors shut close.

Chase was the first to break the silence. "I still don't trust her. I don't think Mr. Davenport does either." He glanced at his older sister. "Bree?"

"I don't like her," Bree said, equally as unhappy as she thought of the girl now sitting in their lab. "But that doesn't mean I shouldn't consider the possibility that Leo's alive."

Chase nodded. "I know," he agreed.

Adam smiled. "I think we can trust her," he said, observing closely the lighting on the elevator.

Bree glared at him. "Why? Because she has a dog?" she asked sarcastically.

"No." Adam smiled at his siblings. "Because she's telling the truth."

Chase narrowed his eyes at him. "Adam, for months, you've made it a habit of doubting everything that everybody tells you, and yet, for this girl, you're making an exception?" he asked.

"I don't doubt _everybody_, Chase," Adam said. "I just don't believe things that aren't true. What this girl is saying—they're all facts. She's telling us things as they are. And she's here because she really needs us to help, not because someone sent her."

"But you don't know her."

"I don't have to know her," Adam said. "All I need to know is that Leo cared about us enough to leave us for a while. He did what he could to save us. Now he's the one who needs us. I don't know about you two, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to bring him back home."

The elevator doors slid open then, revealing the wide kitchen where Tasha seemed preoccupied with starting breakfast.

Adam walked out, greeting Tasha happily and leaving his younger siblings behind without another word.

Bree and Chase exchanged glances before joining their older brother and their mother in the kitchen.

* * *

_to be continued._


	3. Three

_Second update! _

_Many thanks to AlienGhostWizard14, Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, Jillie chan, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, and AllAmericanSlurp for the reviews! I really appreciate it, guys!_

_Longish chapter, and certainly has _tons_ of callbacks from Trial and Error. :) _

_(On a different note, please - if you see mistakes or anything that I could phrase better, please tell me in the comments! I would tremendously appreciate that.)_

* * *

_Three._

Regaining his strength was, Leo decided, the only good thing that had happened so far since the day began. He didn't get as much as he hoped he would, but he had enough to be able to sit up for more than a minute at a time. The task was a constant project, especially with how sore everything would become whenever he moved unfavorably and with how that violent sensation of something sharp being jabbed on the bones of his neck would come after a certain period, like a command that forced him to fall back down, but he didn't mind. He had to get out of there, wherever 'there' was. All pain would be forgotten once he had gotten out.

However, the involuntary surgery he went through continued to inundate him with more waves of side effects. About an hour ago, just as the sun outside was beginning to peek through the clouds, a splitting migraine began to pound on his skull. It had started off mild and was only a bother at first, and then the intensity began to increase more and more until he was reduced to shutting his eyes close from the mild daylight.

As if those were not sufficient, a sickening feeling suddenly developed in his stomach, too, and it had been sitting there for the past half hour.

Leo rolled to his side, eyes tightly shut close, stubbornly refusing to succumb into these.

He was not quite sure how long he stayed on the floor in that state before the same soft sound of flickering electric current from the dissolving piece of the wall came again. Having been familiarized with his own limitations, he fought the inclination to sit up quick, instead taking his time and moving more efficiently to save himself from more pain than what he found allowable.

While he pulled himself up, using his right arm to push down on the cement, he quickly noticed that Douglas was not alone that time. He stared at them warily, his brows knitted softly as he beheld the blankness in their eyes and the coldness in their faces as they marched in—the boy, the girl, the boy—as if they were soldiers.

Douglas smiled as he walked out from behind them, a food tray fastened between his hands. "So the program _is_ functioning correctly," he said, placing down the carrier on the floor. "You _are_ awake."

Leo only stared at him.

Douglas pushed the tray closer to him. "Come on. Eat up," he said.

Leo made no such move to do so.

Douglas crossed his arms. "You haven't taken in anything for nearly two days," he said. Leo detected a hint of warmth and sincerity in his tone for a fleeting second, but he was not very sure if he had just imagined that. "No IVs either. Your body's more than likely in starvation mode. It's not going to help you with getting rid of the pain."

Again, Leo said nothing. He just sat up, focusing his eyes instead on the floor as he calculated the effort and the distance involved so he could sit straighter. He winced lightly as he moved.

"Leo."

Leo looked up when he heard the familiar voice. The hostility and frustration he catered swiftly vanished as he beheld Adam now holding the tray of food in front of him.

"Dude, you have to eat," the older boy said.

Leo stared at him, thoroughly conflicted with the inclinations and inconsistent logic coursing through his mind. He had not realized until then how much he really missed his older brother. The last time he saw him was a lifetime ago. His brother was in a very helpless state then, which only came about because he wanted to protect him. He wasn't even awake when he said goodbye.

Now, Adam was standing there in front of him, convincing him to do something that would be of benefit to him.

However, his mind insisted that it was all an illusion. The appearance of one of the people who could persuade him easily was just a clever trick. Adam would not have tried to convince him to do something Douglas wanted; Adam would have broken him out of there.

Leo severed his focus from the mirage presented to him to survey what was amiss. He saw Douglas with the same smirk, watching the two of them, and then he saw Echo and Fielder also watching closely with a semblance of what he supposed were curiosity.

Then it clicked. Echo and Fielder. No Darwin.

His eyes fell back to the form in front of him, the yearning he felt replaced with realization of who he really was.

"Cool, huh?" Douglas said proudly. "Biological manipulation. Just one of Darwin's five impressive abilities."

The creature in front of Leo continued to regard him with that same caring look, like the one Adam would have given him if it had really been him, before he stood up. As he turned around, the older boy's physiological makeup shifted. The ripple started from the tips of his hands and of his feet, each inch that morphed momentarily fragmenting into scales, like that of a snake's, then coming back together to their real composition.

By the time he had resumed his position beside Echo and Fielder, Darwin was back to how Leo remembered him.

"He has Adam's super strength and laser vision," Douglas explained as he examined his invention. "He also has his core traits: very friendly, very excited about things." Despite the soft frown on his face, a small smirk managed to tug at an end of his lips. He added, "The best part about him is his protectiveness. I've tested his response when it comes to Echo and Fielder being in stressful situations, and his instincts to keep them safe goes into overdrive. When you're added into the mix, though—it goes into overkill."

Leo swallowed thickly, and it was only then he noticed how dry his mouth was. "What are they?" he asked, his voice slightly breaking.

"Technically, they're androids. But they're the best version yet," Douglas said. "Unlike Marcus, they're not easily subjected to wear and tear. They're made to last for a very long time, maybe even longer than we will." He paused when a thought came to him. His smile widened. "Or, actually, as long as _you_ last. Darwin, Echo and Fielder are very dependent on you. If you die, they will, too."

"What do you mean?"

"One of the purposes of the chip I implanted in you is to connect you to them," Douglas replied. "The control panel I have in my own lab receives your vitals, your brain patterns. It gathers all of that information and interprets is as your feelings and your thoughts, and then it sends it to the three of them. From that, they act accordingly. That's why Darwin knew you're hungry, and why Fielder knew you're still having a hard time with moving. They know everything."

Leo said nothing as he saw how much more he stood disadvantaged among them.

At that moment, he sensed a strange spark of warmth somewhere within him, the type that came about whenever somebody offered him a word of encouragement. He frowned in bewilderment. What was that about? Obviously, Douglas was not its source. So who was it from, and how did that happen?

Lifting his eyes up, Leo scanned the other three's features. He caught sight of the small but very reassuring smile from Echo. She directed the gesture at him, as if to let him know that he wasn't alone and that they were on his side.

This deeply troubled Leo.

Douglas misconstrued the searching expression on his face and so continued, "Originally, they were just built as replacements. When Chase double-crossed me, I realized that there was no chance I would get them back. So, once I escaped from Donald's facility, I began working on them, right there at that abandoned lab you and Torrance broke into. It didn't take me long. It never takes me long. Soon, Subject D, Subject E and Subject F were born. But, for a change, I gave them names." His smirk diminished into a ghost of a smile, and Leo dared to venture that it signified a degree of remorse and jealousy. "That's what Donald did anyways, gave Subjects A, B and C names to earn their respect and loyalty. That's one of the things I've learned throughout that whole situation. Loyalty and respect between parents and children starts with the naming."

Douglas easily shrugged the thought off. "Before they were operational, I remembered that like Marcus had been, their memories, their personalities and their abilities would be all dependent on my programming," he said. He chuckled. "That's where trouble came in. I was intent on executing the project quickly that I made the mistake of resorting to shortcuts. I figured that the ones they're supposed to replace are very skilled already and had been trained on how to use their bionics. That started the reflection phase of the project. I accessed Adam's, Bree's and Chase's bionic chips for the core traits and everything else I needed and copied it into these three."

Being occasionally allowed to watch when Donald would do system checks on the older children's bionic chips, Leo had been knowledgeable of the updates, glitches and anomalies that his stepfather found. As far as he could remember, they didn't find anything that supported Douglas' claim of clandestinely accessing Adam, Bree and Chase. None of the data they had considered told them otherwise. Yet, he knew enough that digging too deeply into those past information he had seen may not help, especially when dealing with a person like his step-uncle who could hide everything in plain sight.

_In plain sight._

The knit on Leo's brows cleared when he remembered the numerous instances that proved what he had been told. "That's why Adam, Bree and Chase would constantly blank out," he said as those instances flashed in his mind.

"Yeah. None of them would have known that something was wrong, because I disguised the whole process as something innocent." Douglas walked towards his step nephew, and then took a seat, crossed-legged, in front of him. "The reflection phase presented some errors that I had to go around. It copied the protectiveness Adam, Bree and Chase felt for Donald, for Tasha and for you." He shook his head, "I couldn't let that trait be in them. That would defeat the whole purpose. But, at the same time, I can't just remove it. The high level of skill that I had gotten from your siblings came from their want to keep your family safe. If I take that out, I risk lowering the quality of Darwin's, Echo's and Fielder's skills and abilities. So I didn't."

"What do I have to do with this?" Leo asked. "Why am I here?"

"Because you were chosen as the most logical solution to the problem," Douglas answered. "As far as your siblings' priority, Donald was on the top, which is not surprising. Donald raised the three of them. Naturally, they would be the most protective when it comes to him. You come second because you're their first friend and their brother. The margin between you and Donald is slightly minimized, of course, by the factor of you being the youngest." He picked up the bottle of apple juice from the tray then twisted it open. After taking a hearty sip, he continued, "I couldn't take Donald or Tasha, because then we'd have another repeat of what happened last summer. Plus, they're not the most conducive to my plans. They're adults, and I don't have any experience in wiring a…more mature nervous system.

"You, though, were the perfect candidate for it," Douglas said. "I tested it first to make sure I'm not going to make another mistake. After I had programmed you as the subject of their concentrated protectiveness, I tried it out. I gauged their individual and shared reactions by putting you in a deadly situation. I used Adam's, Bree's and Chase's reactions, as recorded through their chips, as variables to compare it with."

"The death threat," Leo muttered. "That was the trial phase."

Douglas nodded. "It was tricky, but it was necessary," he said. "I needed the data."

Anger slowly bubbled up within Leo, especially as he thought of what his family went through throughout those four days after they received the letter. "Data," he repeated coldly, lividly. "Bree and Adam almost died trying to save me, and this was all to get data?"

"Well, it's unfortunate that that happened, but they should have minded their own business," Douglas stated casually. "Obviously, it was never in my plans to kill you. Echo and Fielder were at the ready during the ball. You didn't see them, but they were there. If you had gotten to the drink first, they were equipped with the medicine to counteract the poison. Because Bree intercepted it, they felt no need to help. They weren't programmed to protect her." He hitched a shoulder. "What I put in there couldn't have hurt anyways, because of the bionics." He took another drink, oblivious of the sweltering gaze Leo was shooting his way. "Same thing with the hit and run. It was in the plan for Echo to stop before the car made any contact with you. She was supposed to take you at that point. But Adam stepped in the way. Like Bree, he was not someone that warranted Echo's concern."

Douglas stood up. "It was actually a bad move on Adam's part. For Echo, he's an enemy. Good thing she wasn't inclined to floor the pedal."

"An enemy?" Leo repeated.

"I've programmed Darwin, Echo and Fielder to recognize Adam, Bree and Chase as threats to your life," Douglas said. "I updated their memories and added Torrance in that mix, too, just in case she decides to try something funny."

Leo's jaw locked in irritation. He was tired of it, tired of being the existing danger to his family's life. It was terrible already when his existence presented dangers to his parents, Adam, Bree and Chase. Now, he had to add Torrance into that burden of guilt too.

"You know, Leo – the two of us? We have more in common than you think," Douglas remarked sincerely.

Leo scoffed weakly. "I see you're sticking to that sales pitch," he commented. He looked up at him, defying the exhaustion weighing on him and giving it his best shot to communicate his vexation. "Here's something you can put in your record: you and me? We're nowhere near the same."

"Sales pitch. I like that," Douglas grinned. He looked at the boy with dismay. "Too bad all that brain's going to waste soon. I really liked the way you think." He shook his head before swiveling around on his heels. He made his way out of the door, with only Darwin following him. Soon, the electric current came again, and the room resumed being a four dimensional wall.

Leo took a deep breath, a mess of anger, exhaustion and apprehension tumbling steadily within him. He knew Douglas' last words were forewarnings to the more miry future that neared him, and it moved him to desperately desire freedom more than ever. Yet, there was no way out from there. He was bound inside the inescapable prisons of that strange room, of his own body and of that chip that had been embedded in him. He resolved never to give up and also to refrain from any thoughts of hopelessness, but it had been made known to him for the third time that the minimal steps he had made was insignificant compared to the quick and measured strides that the rogue inventor made.

_There must be something I can do,_ he thought resiliently. There was a small part of him that insisted that there was a way out, but he had to wait for it.

Instinctively, he turned his attention back to the small window. Its small dimensions might not offer itself as a portal to the outside world, but it did give him a preview. He kept his eyes on it as he slowly lied back down on the cold cement, ignoring Echo and Fielder and paying attention to the way the palm trees swayed as a soft breeze blew through them. Leaves rustled peacefully, bobbing along the invisible stream that bore a scent reminiscent of the salty oceans in North Carolina. Leo took a deep breath of that aroma before he closed his eyes, envisioning clear water rolling into a pristine stretch of sand over and over again.

He fell asleep with these thoughts a few minutes later and dreamt about his family eating lunch on the beach, laughing as they made fun of the ugly colors that filled their beach towels.

* * *

_to be continued._


	4. Four

_Many thanks to Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, Jillie chan, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, AlienGhostWizard14, and AllAmericanSlurp for your reviews! Sorry I haven't replied to your comments; I'll go do that sometime soon._

_Just to answer someone's question quickly (since I cannot respond via PM): at the end of _Search and Destroy_, Douglas revealed that Project Deflection involved his new creations (Darwin, Echo, Fielder) and Leo; the four of them form the D-E-F-L of the project and are the necessary components for it. There are definitely going to be a throwback chapter that refers again to that project in the future, so don't worry. We'll find more about it there, too. :)_

_This is one of my favorite chapters. Head's up, though: it involves bullying of a major character._

* * *

_Four._

Torrance keenly watched the stream of high school students coming out of school as she waited with Bree and Linux near the entrance to Mission Creek High. It was evident to her how impatient Leo's older sister was getting, especially with her sighs and constant consultation of the time on her phone. Earlier on in the day, it had been placed into the plan that both of them would come there to meet with Kerry to let the younger girl identify the dog. Bree had contacted her, and they had set a time. As far as Torrance was aware, the girl was still five minutes away from being late, but it seemed as if that span of time was still too long for Bree.

She understood why she was apprehensive, but she wisely chose not to say anything about it.

Instead, she observed the other students calmly.

As she listened to the laughter and saw a few of them run after each other, Torrance realized that it had been a long time since she was surrounded by people her age. Honestly, she had forgotten that she was just sixteen and like other teenagers she was entitled to act like one. She couldn't remember the last time she had sat in a circle with other girls, taking pictures of herself and her friends. She recalled neither the last time she bought a skirt and was complimented much for it nor the last time she blushed due to a boy she felt an admiration for talking to her. All she had in her memory was her growing list of acquaintances, all of whom she had a very professional relationship with, her black leather jacket that her last foster father bought for her as a parting gift, and the respect she felt for Chase ever since she learned some things about him.

It was clear that she was not a normal girl. She was straightforward and had a penchant for matters that others might consider as too tedious.

Despite this, however, she was at peace with herself and who she was, especially with the unexpected but now very welcomed change in her life, namely, a one true friend that liked her for who she was.

With a smile, Torrance looked down at Linux before petting him.

The dog stared at her gratefully, seemingly content with the small increase in affection that she had been showing him.

"She's taking forever," Bree complained before crossing her arms and then walking back to where Torrance sat under the shade of a tree. She observed the two for a few seconds, both of whom were oblivious to her. There were many things she wanted to ask, many things she wanted to know, but she declined from making any unnecessary conversations with the other girl. Like Chase, she still found it hard to trust her—and she doubted she ever would—but she could not disregard the reality she had brought forth just the night before: that their youngest brother was alive and was out there, needing their help.

"Aw, look. She actually came to school today!"

Bree spun around when she recognized the voice and found Stephanie standing behind her with four other cheerleaders looming close.

Stephanie crossed her arms and chuckled unkindly. "Reggie told me about bringing in a real live gorilla for the senior prank, and here you are!" she said.

Bree crossed her arms, her head bowing slightly in shame as the cheerleaders laughed. She glanced around, hoping that none of the other students heard. Her heart sank when she saw a few of them watching, one or two of them giggling in secret.

Stephanie wrinkled her nose exaggeratedly. She sniffed close to Bree. "Oh, and you smell like it, too," she noted, eliciting another bout of laughter from others.

"What do you want, Stephanie?" Bree asked defensively.

Stephanie shrugged. "Nothing," she said. "Just…checking out if it was true. Looks like it is. You should check it out online. Don't know if you've heard but twenty-six people signed the petition agreeing that you're the, you know…" Then, she looked at her diminutively, from head to toe and back. She smirked.

Bree resolved not to let the looks and the giggling from others affect her. As her family and friends had told her, getting upset over it would be a waste of time. She needed not feel powerless, especially when she knew she was not.

Although she understood that Bree was strong enough to deal with the situation on her own, Torrance could not let the petty display of power unravel before her wordlessly. She continued petting Linux. "Twenty-six signatures, more than half of which were yours?" she asked Stephanie.

Stephanie, along with Bree and the others, looked back at her. "Excuse me?" the cheerleader asked.

"There are fourteen signatures in that petition that you signed yourself," Torrance clarified. She looked at her. "In reality, there are only twelve other people who agree with you. Nine, actually, because Deirdra Collins, Blake Hardison and Jamiya Neely, signature numbers four, seventeen and nineteen are people you have blackmailed into signing the petition. They do not agree that Bree Davenport is ugly; you just forced them to agree. So, it's just you, these four equally insecure young women behind you, and four other students, who clearly do not have the mental capacity to know what beauty is, who signed the petition."

Stephanie stared at Torrance, surprised at the knowledge the girl had about what she had done. Still, not wanting to give that truth away, she scoffed, her brows lightly knitted. "Oh, ew. Why would I do that?" she asked.

"Because you are jealous," Torrance stated. She stood up and then walked to Bree's side.

"Uh, no? Why would I be jealous of her?" Stephanie asked, laughing.

"Because Owen Kelley found her to be beautiful, but he doesn't feel the same way about you," Torrance said.

Stephanie rolled her eyes despite her cheeks turning red. "Okay, clearly, you're a weirdo like The Ugliest," she said, referring to Bree.

"I may be strange, but I am correct about your reasons, aren't I, Stephanie George?" Torrance asked factually. "In fact, I have reason to believe that you yourself do not find Bree Davenport hideous. You feel the exact opposite." She glanced at Stephanie's uneasy posture. "The moment Bree Davenport looked at you, you crossed your arms. Crossing one's arms is a sign of insecurity. Am I right in assuming that she does this most of the time when she speaks to or about you, Bree Davenport?" she asked, turning to look at Bree.

Bree, despite her shock at the things she was finding out, thought about it. "Well, yeah," she answered honestly as she recalled those instances of Stephanie confronting her.

Torrance turned her attention next to the girls behind Stephanie, waiting for their confirmation.

None of them had the courage to look at her to reaffirm her assumption.

"You feel small compared to her because she has the things you want but cannot have," Torrance said, "like Owen Kelley."

"Okay, I do not like Owen," Stephanie cried out, futilely trying to keep her composure in front of the growing number of people.

"What is wrong with liking him? Of all people, you should know that your childhood best friend has many very affable qualities," Torrance continued. "You also know well and admire his talent. You have always made it a point to attend every art show, even when your friendship has waned. You always show your support at a distance, even when you know he doesn't notice it."

As the tables turned and the gazes were now on her, Stephanie grew very uneasy due to the embarrassment she felt. "Look, Loser Number Two, I don't know what you're talking about, alright?" she said, markedly unhappy. "I didn't sign the petition fourteen times, and I certainly didn't do that because I'm jealous of her."

Torrance lightly frowned as the wheels of her mind turned. "I suppose you're right. You didn't sign your name there that many times," she said. "However, you did sign it with fake names. Signature numbers two and three are names you had gotten from the end credits of an animated movie you watched with your younger sister. They were production assistants. Signature numbers eleven to fourteen are names you just came up with. What really gives you away is signature number twenty-three, which I'm guessing has just been recently added. I assume you subconsciously picked up the name without realizing your past encounter with its owner?"

Stephanie thought back on the name and remembered in horror the head of security at Mission Creek Mall. "You don't have any proof," she challenged.

"The question isn't whether I have the proof or not," Torrance said. "What you may want to make clear to me is, do you really want everyone in this school to know everything that only you and I are supposed to know?"

Stephanie fumed in silence, not taking her eyes off the girl less it conveyed the apprehension she felt somewhere inside of her due to the threat.

Torrance stared back, her expression devoid of any emotions. She almost found it laughable, the teenage girl's attempt to intimidate her. Clearly, the cheerleader had a lot of things to learn in the real world, specifically the fact that there were much bigger and much more horrible forces out there than her brittle and petty high school supremacy, all of which Torrance had encountered and adapted from.

After a drawn out period of silence, Stephanie surrendered. She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Bree's still ugly, and you're still a loser," she told Torrance before marching away, the other cheerleaders speechlessly following her.

Torrance watched them vanish into the entrance with interest, as if she was only watching a scene from a documentary.

"Um. Thank you," Bree said sincerely though still resolutely refusing to reconsider her suspicion of her.

"Not necessary," Torrance said as she walked back to where she was sitting. "Her presence is derailing the task at hand, so she had to be taken care of."

"Right," Bree awkwardly acceded. Her brows wrinkled soon after as the confrontation between both girls replayed in her mind, particularly the piece of information that the hacker had just revealed to everyone. "What you said. Is that true? That Stephanie's doing all of this because she's jealous of me and Owen?"

"She's jealous of you, period," Torrance said, petting Linux consolingly, who she supposed was whining due to hunger and the oddly temperate weather. "As I have said, you have many things she desires but cannot have."

"And how do you know all of this?" she asked.

"I'm a hacker, Bree Davenport. In this digital age, almost everyone is an open book to me." Torrance looked up after Linux settled down on the concrete glumly. "Plus, as I've told Leo, I have been keeping watch of your family. I am aware of the significant things that had happened, have been happening and will happen. One of those that I am knowledgeable of is Stephanie George's poor treatment of you and Caitlin Woods. I was sure that if Leo had known of it, he would want something done about it. So, I dug for information. I looked through her e-mail, her phone records and social media pages to know more about her."

"Isn't that wrong?"

"I'm not in a kind of business that concerns itself with ethics," Torrance answered. "I do, however, come from a profession where first moves are crucial. In this instance, Stephanie George made the first move. She made a wrong one. It will not hurt her to learn that making other people feel miserable because she is unhappy is immature and bears its own consequences."

Although she agreed, Bree said nothing in reply. She decided that what the other girl did should keep Stephanie from bothering her for a good week, but, like those instances when Adam, Ayanna or Kerry would stand up for her, it still wouldn't stop her permanently. She was sure that the cheerleader, much more humiliated now, would come back later on angrier and more intent to belittle her in front of everybody.

Torrance only had to take one affirmative glance at her to know what she was thinking. "Do not keep begging for love and respect from people who do not want to give it to you, Bree Davenport," she said. Bree looked up at her. "Don't you agree that you should ask for those things from people who deserve yours?"

Bree's brows slightly knitted. "I…guess," she responded reluctantly.

"And won't you also agree that your parents, your brothers, your best friend and your boyfriend fall into that category?"

"Yeah."

"Then stop cowering in fear of someone who does not even warrant the slightest of your concerns," Torrance said firmly. "There are bigger problems you are facing now, all of which requires you being sure of yourself. Are you willing to put Leo's life on the line because nine people don't think you're pretty?"

"Of course not," Bree replied a little fiercely, taking offense in her question.

"Then it's settled," Torrance said. "Stephanie George and her boorish antics are distractions. My warnings had taken care of it. Now let's move on."

Bree stared at Torrance unhappily. She knew that there were inklings of good intentions in what the girl said, but the callous delivery of them overturned the gratefulness that usually accompanied encouragements—if she could even call it that. For a stranger, she was way too domineering, which, as Bree thought about it, had been the case since they met her the night prior. She also remained detached from the family. She had shown enough respect to the parents of the household, but she didn't seem to particularly care for the three of them. Bree was not sure if it was just her own prejudices against the girl without a name (for she still refused to give them that basic but very necessary information), but she was confident enough to venture that the hacker had a problem with her and her brothers.

There were not very many things to like about her.

Yet, if the way she spoke about and know him had any truth into it, the girl and Leo seemed pretty close.

Bree watched as Torrance carefully readjusted Linux's collar in an attempt to allay the discomfort the dog was experiencing because of their long wait. Bree didn't require herself to do it then and there, but maybe she could reconsider the instant detachment she felt for the younger girl. After all, she had always known Leo to have an affinity towards good people. If he had befriended her, perhaps she had some redeeming qualities to her.

"So you _had_ been lying to me."

Bree and Torrance looked up and found Kerry making her way towards them, her expression reflecting the indignation and hurt she felt after she recognized Linux. As she neared, Torrance stood while Bree faced the girl.

Kerry stopped in front of them, not taking her eyes off the dog. "He _is_ alive," she said. Then, she looked up at Bree.

"This dog," Bree said. "This is the one you saw in New York with Leo?"

Kerry nodded weakly, remembering clearly the moment she saw them walking through the busy streets of Manhattan then getting consumed by its crowd too soon.

Bree realized at that moment how unequipped she was with any approaches should the situation turn out that way. She, Chase and her father never expected the hacker's claims to be true. It was pretty to think so, that the loved one they had lost was somewhere out there, in danger but still very much alive. Now that a solid evidence to the truthfulness of it had been provided for them, she was rendered confused on how and what to feel. The presence of someone asking her for an explanation, when she herself barely had a clear grasp of it, further complicated matters.

Really, how could she answer truthfully without giving too much away?

So, Bree began the best way she could.

* * *

_to be continued._


	5. Five

_Many, many thanks to Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, Jillie chan, phoenixfire, AlienGhostWizard14, AllAmericanSlurp, and xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx for the reviews!_

_Just to answer a question quickly: the petition Stephanie started online is to "prove" that Bree is the ugliest girl in Mission Creek. She's been using this to bully her and to destroy her self-confidence because, as Torrance proved last chapter, she's jealous of her. More about this was discussed in chapter seven of Search and Destroy. :)_

_Okay. Note in the beginning of this story regarding a particular element will start applying from this chapter onward._

* * *

_Five._

The nightly breeze blew quickly and clearly outside the window, and this slightly brought in a refreshing air in an otherwise suffocating room. From the feel of it, Leo could gauge that the rain earlier on that morning had done well in keeping the weather light and even enjoyable for that day, but the thickening of the air and the gradual increase in the temperature were foretelling of an uncomfortable afternoon tomorrow. He had a feeling that he wouldn't suffer much from it. Even if the room he was held in seemed vulnerable to the fluctuating weather pattern outside, he suspected it was equipped to readjust its own environment to protect what it held: Douglas' three highly-valued inventions, all of whom were recently assigned to stay in there from this night onward, and him.

Leo couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or not, being guarded and well-cared for the same way those three deadly weapons were being guarded and well-cared for.

He sat up with his back against the cool wall, his knees pulled up towards him, his arms sitting on top. He stared at Darwin, Echo and Fielder from behind his arms, scanning their empty features as he wondered how much of his thoughts were known to them at that moment. Could they read the suspicion he had towards them? The wariness he felt whenever they were around? Was it currently registering to them, the effort he had put into staying as far away from them as possible? How did they read the motives for his doing so? Did they know he felt angry, cheated, helpless?

Did they know he was beginning to feel terrified? For his family, for himself? Of them?

Leo thought about it and reconsidered those questions. Maybe terrified was too strong of a word. He wasn't scared of them; he had complete trust in what he and his family have the ability to do. What gravely worried him, however, was the unclear link that had gradually been forming between the four of them.

He couldn't explain it. It all began with Echo's encouragement earlier, which had come across to him strongly without her uttering even a word. Douglas had said that they could read his brain activity and translate it correctly, but he couldn't remember him saying anything about them being able to communicate with him through a thought. He was almost tempted to ask him if this was another feature of the chip, but he concluded that more than likely the inventor already knew about it. He designed it and them after all. Plus, on the off chance that he didn't, Leo could use that to his advantage, although how he did not know.

He also had to get over the ill feeling this whole ordeal had been leaving him.

It was horrible enough that they could get inside his head without him being able to do anything about it, but what made it worse was his suspicion that he was beginning to develop the ability to do the same thing to them. This became apparent to him when he awakened from his sleep. His dream was filled with the pleasant scenario of his family enjoying their vacation on a beach somewhere, but then he recalled certain bits, three in total, that didn't quite match everything else. He supposed that was natural, as his dreams even long beforehand were usually filled with random pieces woven from his subconscious, but there was something distinct and even realistic about those moments.

The first one lasted a few seconds. He was looking down at a pair of feet trekking across a partly sandy terrain, bypassing what seemed like bases of palm trees. He noticed the footwear: dark green, engineered to have good traction but light enough to be able to move quickly and effortlessly should the situation call for it.

He began wondering who it was he was watching. Or, actually, whether he was watching anyone at all. He seemed to be the one doing the walking, though it certainly felt like he was in someone else's shoes.

After a while he started to wonder where he was.

The feet abruptly stopped then, as if their owner understood him. He looked up.

All Leo saw was a brief glimpse of a beach, the same one his family was in. That time, however, it was empty. No parents, no siblings in sight. He only saw the sand, the water—its beauty and its loneliness.

The second frame was shorter still. He remembered looking at a cluster of computer screens from a few feet away, behind reinforced glass that he decided must be part of a capsule. He focused on one of the computers and tried to read the code on it. As he did, he recognized its similarities to the Triton app.

When he leaned forward to get a better view, the glass in front of him lightly reflected Fielder's features.

The last misplaced piece was not a sight, but a sound. _"Darwin. Do you understand me?"_ Douglas' voice came through fuzzily through an earpiece. His tone was undeniably firm and unhappy, but he also picked up a hint of worry.

A click. A beep. _"Yes. I understand you."_

_I understand you completely._

As he stared at the three, Leo took comfort in the likelihood of those moments being his subconscious' way of adapting to the new factors added into the ongoing game. They were the most unstable, almost too caustic elements that could sway the outcome of it all towards a definite loss, and it was obvious that he had to figure out a way to stop them. That would explain why they were on his mind even as he slept.

However, he had a hunch that that justification may just be wrong. What if the chip really could enable him to connect to them, just like they could to him?

At this, Leo gently leaned his head on his forearm, careful not to make any contact with his still sore wrist, and closed his eyes. His warm breath fogged the small enclosure created by his legs and arms. He felt filthy, not only because of his current unbathed state, but because of the possibility of him being used to take away Darwin's, Echo's and Fielder's freedom.

Worse yet, of becoming their Triton app, of becoming something he had worked hard to destroy.

"You don't have to be."

Leo jolted up, startled. He looked up at the source of the voice and had to stare in disbelief. His heart seemed to fail function as his mind registered the features of the man sitting across from him.

"You know, you can use this to your advantage."

Leo's brows slightly furrowed as he took in the man's attire: old, faded jeans, and a solid white shirt under a purple hoodie with San Francisco State University printed in front of it. He remembered that outfit clearly, because that was what he would wear when he picked him up from school when he started first grade. "Dad?" he said.

Jason smiled at him after taking a quick glance at Darwin, Echo and Fielder. "What is one divided by one plus three?" he asked cryptically.

Leo blinked then rubbed his eyes with his right hand.

When he looked up, his father was gone.

Leo continued to stare at the spot where his father had been. Soon, he began to wonder if he had just imagined him.

But—he had been too vivid to only be an abstract. His voice, his smile. Those eyes that he had no doubt inherited from him. His warmth. He had never seen these for ten years, but he was absolute that those only characterized one man.

Still, his father couldn't have been there. He _wasn't_ there.

_What is one divided by one plus three?_ had been the question.

_Four_, he answered quickly, like how he had learned to do when his father would quiz him out of the blue when he was younger. However, he knew that what his father aspired for him to realize this time was something more than a number.

Figuring out what it was became a conundrum that kept him up all night.

* * *

_to be continued._


	6. Six

_Many thanks to LabGirl2001, phoenixfire, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Jillie chan, xxWasabiWarriorlertxx, and AllAmericanSlurp ( ;) ) for the reviews!_

_Last of the 'normal' chapters. Things are about to tilt out of balance from next chapter onward._

_Throwbacks on Trial and Error again, with an interesting reveal._

* * *

_Six. _

A huge grin brightened Adam's face as he continued to rub the soft dark fur behind Linux's ears. He cooed over the dog, showering him with much affectionate words and attention, which it undeniably appreciated. Linux stared intently at Adam, never breaking eye contact less that stop the teenage boy from showing his fondness of him. He also sidled closer to him, enjoying every bit of favor he was getting from the only person in the family who he didn't view as a threat.

Meanwhile, at the mission specialist desk, Torrance occupied herself with watching the two. The rest of the family had left her in Adam's care as they 'do damage control before dinner' upstairs—which, she knew, meant that they needed a private moment to themselves to discuss their next approach without her being in the room. They had been gone for nearly half an hour, and she had been using that time to find any activities on Leo's phone, if it had been at least turned on recently. She also set up traps, ones that should lead them to Douglas' location should he take the bait.

She was not supposed to go anywhere near the computers, but after the family was clearly nowhere near their perimeter, Adam looked up at her and said, "If you can make sure that Mr. Davenport never finds out about you taking the desk for a spin, keep us out of trouble? You can use it to find Leo." When she continued to stare, half incredulous, half suspicious, he shrugged, smiling. "Don't worry. I'm not a tattletale," he said before picking up a small, decade-old stuffed toy that he chose to donate to Linux. He used that to call the dog over to the other side of the room so they could play.

After she was certain that his intentions were as he said they were, she immediately took the chance to fill her share of the search.

She discovered soon after that, like several times beforehand, her efforts were vain. Dead end after dead end she ran into. The apparent tight restrictions wound around her, around them, as well as the anxiety she felt over Leo's current state vexed and frustrated her to no end. For the first time in many years, someone had managed to pull one over her head, and she didn't like it one bit. She was not used to situations like the one she found herself in so she was not exactly sure how to act properly.

However, if there was one thing she had learned from her past experiences, it was that aggravation is as blinding as ignorance. Although it may seem like they were too pressed for time to stop, look up and assess the circumstances, she needed to refrain from whatever the situation persistently urged her to pursue and do it. Clearing her mind was important. After all, puzzles were not solved by people who get worked up by pieces that wouldn't fit the empty spaces; they were solved by people with the insight to pause, look at the big picture, and figure out where the fragments go.

At that moment, she was being presented with pieces that, though they were definitely not part of the problematic frame they need to solve, were parts of the vivid and ever-developing photograph which was Leo's life.

Torrance smiled. "He likes you, Adam Davenport," she commented after initiating an automatic search using the desk.

Adam looked up. "Oh, yeah. It seems like he does," he agreed before turning his attention back to Linux. "Because he's a good boy. You're a good boy, aren't you? Yes, you are! You're a good little heartbreaker."

Torrance continued watching them, successfully holding back a chuckle.

"Man. I wish I had a dog," Adam mused sadly. "What's his name again? Linux?"

Torrance nodded. "Linux," she said.

"That's different. Sounds cool, though." Adam tossed the toy in his hand some distance away, moving Linux to retrieve it. "How'd you come up with his name?"

"I didn't name him, your brother did," Torrance said. "Linux is Leo Dooley's dog."

"He is?" he asked.

"He is."

Adam watched as Linux deposited the stuff toy in front of him. His attachment to the dog doubled. Soon, he began to wonder about other things. "How was Leo?" he asked.

"He was well," Torrance said.

"Did he know we were there at the facility?" Adam asked, inwardly bracing himself for the answer he might get. "Did he see us?"

Torrance keenly read his hesitance and decided to use that to refract the conversation. "Something tells me you do not want the answer," she said.

Adam thought about it and decided what she had said was true: he didn't want her to tell him that his brother had seen them and decided to ignore them. Especially not with what she had revealed to them earlier, that he felt out of place with them. He didn't want the confirmation to his misgivings that his brother left, not only to protect them, but also because they drove him away.

So, as a response to her, he shook his head, a consolatory one-sided smile on his face.

Torrance said nothing more.

"You know, it's been a while since I saw him," Adam said. He tossed the toy again, farther this time. "Six months." He turned back to Torrance. "Chase has gotten taller since spring. Leo probably did, too."

"He's nearing your height," Torrance said with a smile. "He's taller than Bree Davenport."

A weak grin slowly emerged on Adam's lips. "Really?" he asked. "When he left, he was still a bit shorter than her. I guess Bree and I can't call him Short Stack anymore if he's really gotten that tall."

"He had matured, too. In more ways than one," Torrance added.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes," Torrance said. "In fact, for one, he had been worried when he first had his new haircut. He remarked that if you and your siblings had seen it, you would have laughed at him."

"He did?"

"Yes."

"What did it look like?" Adam asked, amused by the potential haircuts Leo might have gotten.

"You will have to wait and see," Torrance said.

Adam nodded, taking it as an encouragement to continue their search.

"Leo Dooley has managed to change and yet stay the same," Torrance added. "He's still prone to sarcasm and still runs into problems that he creates. He's also very stubborn at times. For the good things, on rare occasions. That is why we have Linux. He didn't want him to be thrown at a shelter, so he bought him from a woman who was not a very kind owner." She glanced at the Siberian husky trotting towards Adam. "I did not want a dog, but your brother managed to convince me that he's necessary. He was relentless about him coming with us."

Adam nodded. After a period of silence, he chuckled. "Can I ask you something?"

Torrance patiently waited for him to continue.

"Are you and Leo…?"

"Romantically involved?" Torrance filled in. "No. Leo and I are just close acquaintances."

"So, when you say close acquaintances, does that mean you're best friends?" Adam asked with a soft frown.

"It means we know each other well enough, and he's someone I can trust," Torrance said.

"Okay," Adam said, although he knew that she was not giving him the very honest answer. Even if he wasn't able to judge the true scope of her relationship with Leo, he was able to judge that the two were nothing more than best friends—which was good. He had noticed Chase's prolonged glares at her. His little brother still suspected her of dishonesty, no doubt, but once or twice he dared venture that that suspicion swiftly skipped to the boundary of curiosity, the kind that forayed into affinity. _Then again, I might be wrong, _he thought.

As he watched Torrance close the programs on the desk then remove the flash drives she had brought there with her, a connection sparked in his memory. He smiled as he petted Linux, the dog lying down on the floor in exhaustion after the brief exercise. "Now I remember you," he said. "You were the girl at Best Buy. You were showing me all of those bottle holder things. You told me your name was Jen."

Torrance smiled as she, too, remembered. "I was," she said, "and I did."

"So is that your name? Jen?" Adam asked.

Torrance contemplated what answer she should give, but she decided that there was nothing or no one she should guard against. There was no point in hiding anything. Not that time. She shook her head. "No," she said. "My name is Torrance."

"Torrance," Adam repeated. "Okay."

Torrance gave him a small smile but didn't linger. She busied herself with restoring the desk to the way it was, like nothing ever happened.

"Torrance?"

"Yes."

"Why did you do it?" Adam asked, his brows wrinkled in perplexity as he looked at her. "That Friday night, Leo was in danger. You were keeping me away from him. Why did you do it?"

Torrance stood up from the desk. Then, she began walking towards the couch, towards him and Linux. "To protect you," she said plainly. "The same reason I made the fake phone call to your sister's phone at the ball, only at that instance I miscalculated."

"Why would you protect us?"

"Because all of you are very important to Leo Dooley," Torrance responded.

"But, if we hadn't stepped in, he would have gotten hurt."

"I know," Torrance said, "but I wouldn't have let it happen."

Adam's face cleared of the soft frown and gave way to an expression of understanding. "The debt," he said. "The one that you said you owed him."

Torrance nodded.

"What did he do for you anyways?" Adam asked.

"He saved someone who was very important to me when I couldn't be there for her," Torrance said simply.

Adam processed the information. Then, he smiled.

"The methods of my approach had been different from the way your family handled the situation, I admit, but the goal had been the same: make sure Leo Dooley and the people he cared about come out of that ordeal unscathed," Torrance said.

"Speaking of my family, you know, they're not always that uptight," Adam said, smoothing down Linux's fur when he stood up. "It's just—we're dealing with a lot of things after the truth bomb you just dropped on us."

"I'm aware," Torrance remarked kindly.

"It's been hard, after Leo died," Adam continued. "That little guy's super important to us, you know? I can't even describe to you how bad that wrecked us. Even if I always had a feeling that he wasn't gone, what happened still made me think about other things. Like what I would do if we lost Bree, or Chase. It kept me up at night. Then I have to watch everybody else struggle. Tasha's the hardest to watch. Now that I know what I know, I wish Leo had chosen a different way to leave us. What he did wasn't fair."

"Are you upset with your brother?"

"I'm trying not to be," Adam admitted. "I don't know how I'm going to feel when I see him, honestly."

_He knows. That's why he didn't want to come home,_ Torrance thought but decided to withhold the information. She was aware that Adam was the most understanding out of all of them, but she still needed the uncertainty he was feeling towards Leo's choices to continue to exist. She understood that she shouldn't think this way and that she should reassure them that the boy they once lost did what he could for them, but she couldn't. She wanted that distance between them.

As Linux walked towards her, she realized that her conscience was reprimanding her for her selfishness, but like before she worked to mute it. True, her reason for coming to them was somewhat underhanded. She told them she needed their help to rescue Leo, and she did, but she concealed the most important part of that plan. It's very irrational, the more she thought about it, to play with and manipulate everyone's emotions for her own advantage, but that wasn't her fault. She had been dealt with a bad hand when it came to her circumstances in life. Now that she knew how good things could be if the tables were turned, she was determined to play all aces she could get, even if it meant others would lose.

She wanted to belong somewhere, too, like they do. She wanted a family, even if it would only consist of her and the person she cared about like he was her own brother.

She decided that that was neither too much to ask nor too little to fight for.

* * *

_to be continued._


	7. Seven

_Much thanks to LabGirl2001, phoenixfire, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Jillie chan, AllAmericanSlurp and 88keys for the reviews! My apologies, too, to all of you. A project has been keeping me offline for the most part, and that's why I haven't sent out replies. I will soon, though!_

_As always, please, if you see anything that needs correction, let me know. I'd so very much appreciate it._

_Things are about to take a sharp turn from this chapter onwards._

* * *

_Seven._

Leo was dreaming about a conversation with his father when two loud claps violently snapped him awake. Lifting his head up from the warm cement, he looked around for the source of the intrusive noise. When he saw the unwelcome visitor strolling in, an inhumane smirk pulling at his lips as he examined him with much interest, Leo sat up albeit with a struggle.

"Brain response is quick," Douglas said. "That's good. That's exactly what we need."

Leo swallowed but found that his mouth was too dry for it. "Need for what?" he asked, his voice barely coming through.

"First trial with the simulator," Douglas responded. His brows wrinkled in curiosity, but his smirk widened coldly. "I told you yesterday about it. Don't you remember?"

Leo didn't respond. Instead, he looked out the window to see what time of the day it was. As he watched the golden drops of sunlight glide to and fro the greenly leaves on the trees, his heart sank a little as he thought about the question and its answer. Quite honestly, he couldn't remember much of anything. All memories had been muddled inside his brain, and they only continued to fall disastrously out of order every time he closed his eyes.

When he sensed fear lurking in the distance, he quickly distracted himself from his previous thoughts by looking around the room. He shouldn't be afraid. Being scared would start him off his own downfall, and he could not have that. He had an enemy to defeat and a family to go back to. "Where are they?" he asked after noticing Darwin, Echo and Fielder's absence.

"On standby," Douglas said. "Once the simulator is set off, they'll be gone. They'll go where you go."

Leo lightly frowned.

Douglas didn't give him the explanation he knew he wanted. Instead, he looked down on the tablet on his hand. "The chip's pretty powerful, so anything strange you'd feel is normal. There shouldn't be any physical strain," he said. "Nothing unusual has happened, has there?"

Leo scoffed. He tried not to think of last night (he was sure it was last night) when his father appeared in the room and spoke with him. "Nothing is usual here," he answered plainly.

Douglas laughed a low laugh, amused by his step-nephew's snide remark.

A sick feeling began to bubble up in Leo's stomach, but he ignored it. "I will not help you," he told him decisively. "You're not going to use me in your game anymore."

"You still don't get it, do you?" Douglas said. "Kid, you're just a piece. Your only purpose is to be used. You're just a means to an end, like a pawn. You don't have any choice." He sighed. Then, his shoulders hitched, his lower lip also lightly jutting upwards as he walked around. "But, if you want to try and play, let's play," he said. "The simulator's set to place you on a mountain in Goshen, Virginia, with what's happening there right now. The electromagnetic field that you and Torrance set off in the forest had started a wildfire, and it's spreading rapidly. Firemen are trying to stop it before it reaches the residential areas, but they're not getting much success. You may not want to help me, but what about these people? Is it in you to not make Darwin, Echo and Fielder help them?" He smiled coldly. "Your move."

Leo glared at Douglas as he walked out of the room, vanishing behind the same door that vanished with the downward wave of the electric current. He forced the haziness out of his brain to figure a way out of there. He was not very sure about the trueness of what the inventor said, about the first trial being set to a containment mission, but he knew he didn't want to just sit there to find out. Good intentions or bad, this would still sum up to one result: him being used to control Darwin, Echo and Fielder. He did not want to be their Triton app.

He doesn't want to be their string.

He agonized to get up on his feet. Gravity exerted much force over him, tugging him and his iron-like bones back down to the ground, but he kept at it. He paused only when he heard the hissing noises coming from up above. He looked up, and from the rusted pipes he found thick black smoke steadily flowing out. He fought harder to get up.

He was met with some success after what seemed a lifetime, his knees bent below him and poised to spring him upwards.

Then, the floor swiftly shifted beneath him, as if it was a rug that was pulled out in an instant.

Coughing, Leo attempted to stand up again. It was almost impossible now, with his right shoulder feeling dislocated after his forearm broke his fall and his midsection throbbing in pain after slamming against the concrete, but he kept trying. He had to get out of there.

Before he could do anything else, the room tilted around. All he could do was close his eyes to prevent the dizziness and clamp his jaws tightly to stop the bile from rising up to his mouth.

When everything stopped, Leo slowly lifted his head up from the ground. He could still smell the pungent smoke, but something else wafted to his nose, something familiar. Opening his eyes, he stared at what he was resting on. Soil. Dark brown, earthy and loose soil. His fingers gently dug through the ground, bringing a handful towards his palm so he could feel it. It was slightly wet and cool. The grains that embedded inside his nails felt like freedom.

The soft ticking around him forced him to look up. Instead of the gray walls that hemmed him into unbearable solitude, he saw trees that stretched in all directions for miles, trees that were, to his memory, familiar. But the browns and greens and blues that he had run through was gone. All that stood around him was black and gray as angry ember leaves burned everything into ashes, and the dark fog that loomed like thick, greedy clouds.

Leo pulled himself up—and was surprised when, in a matter of seconds, he was able to stand on his feet and stay on his feet. He examined his legs, his arms, his wrist. Besides the incredible heat pressing in on him, everything felt fine, nothing broken, nothing bruised, nothing cut open then sown close.

A loud crash behind him forced him out of his musings. Spinning back, he saw that a huge tree had fallen down, sending dust and a red mist to spray upwards and all around it. The smoke only thickened, and soon he was coughing out more than he was breathing in. His eyes also began stinging terribly, rendering him unable to see anything. So, he used his forearm as a shield then started to walk ahead in search of clearer air.

He knew he told Douglas that he was not going to participate in whatever plan he had laid out, and he was still intent on carrying that out. Though fear and panic were blaring inside his head all at once, he tried his hardest to remain calm. This was all a part of the simulator; none of it was real. He wasn't trapped in that wildfire. He was still in that room, seeing and feeling things that a program wanted him to see and feel.

But, even if he was not in that forest, other people may be. What if Douglas was telling the truth, that all of this was really taking place? There would be men, women, children—various lives at stake. What if they all truly depended on him giving up this fight and doing what he was being manipulated to do?

_My siblings. My siblings, they would be here if this is real_, Leo told himself. He stopped walking despite the violent coughs seizing him. _This is not real. This is not real. _

Before he could get back down to the ground where he knew no smoke would be, he heard a voice calling out for him. He blinked back the caustic fog to see who it was but had to rely back on his hearing when he couldn't open his eyes.

Then, "Leo!" Coughing echoed at a distance. "Leo, where… Where are you?"

"Torrance?" Leo breathed out.

The sound of a loud snap bellowed above the destruction all around him. Then, a squeak that increased in volume and intensity came next, followed by a thunderous boom and the forest floor shaking.

A scream.

"Torrance!"

Leo ran westward where he last heard Torrance's distraught cries. "Torrance!" he called out.

"Leo, please! Leo, where are you?" Torrance shouted, her voice quivering from what he could only guess were tears.

It moved him to run faster.

When he reached a clearing, he stopped. Behind a burning, fallen tree, he saw Torrance's silhouette, looking all around the debris that trapped her. "Torrance—"

"Leo."

Leo swiveled around, and he found his father standing a distance away from him.

Jason shook his head. "This is not real," he told him.

"Leo!" Torrance called out.

Leo glanced back at her worriedly before turning back to his father. He coughed out the smoke that threatened to cloud his lungs. "What if it is?" he asked his father.

Jason looked past him, towards the phantom in the fog. His eyes soon rested back at his son.

"She was—" Leo choked out the air cutting around his windpipe, "she was following me, Dad. I can't—" he coughed again, "if she came back for me, if she's trapped, I can't… I can't let her die because of me."

Another snap rang out as soon as he turned back to help Torrance—but this time it came from somewhere close. As he looked upwards, he saw a charred trunk of a tree looming towards him.

However, before it could hit him, somebody ran in from behind him to catch it then toss it away.

_Darwin,_ Leo thought when he saw the older blonde boy towering over him, slightly wincing due to the slight burn the falling tree inflicted on his hand.

Two more figures came towards them. "Darwin?" Fielder said worriedly.

"I'm fine," Darwin said. He then looked at Leo. "But he's not."

"I got him," Echo said. She walked towards Leo and then wrapped an arm around him.

Leo wanted to protest, but soon he was caught in a strong gust of wind that prevented him from doing so. When it cleared, he found himself sitting down on a widely open part of the mountain where the smell of the wildfire only vaguely wafted about and where daylight abounded.

"Are you okay?"

Leo looked up and saw Echo, staring at him with much concern in her eyes. He examined the forest, searching for Torrance or even his father, but he didn't find them.

"Stay here," Echo instructed. "We'll be back."

"Where is she?" Leo asked.

"Where's who?"

Leo almost answered, but he remembered what Douglas told him: Torrance was an enemy to them, someone that they would not feel obligated to rescue even if he asked them. So, instead he said, "The girl. There was a girl trapped in there with me."

Echo's frown turned into a bewildered gaze. "Leo, there was no one in there with you," she said. "You were there alone."

Leo stared at her, discerning whether she was telling the truth or was telling a lie to save her and her brothers the obligation of saving someone who they viewed as a problem.

His heart sank when he saw that she was telling the truth.

Echo smiled a small smile at him. "It's okay," she said. "You're safe now." Then, she turned around, vanishing a microsecond later in a pace as quick as sound.

Leo, however, was oblivious to this. All he could think about was what Echo told him. Torrance wasn't there. He was all alone. She wasn't real, just like everything else around him. She was just a manipulation. Her voice, her cries, her presence—everything about her was a coded illusion. His father told him, and he didn't listen. Now, because of his hardheadedness and his naivety, Douglas' plans were set to motion. The inventor had proved that he could use him to get Darwin, Echo and Fielder to do anything he wanted.

Douglas had righted his past mistake—and he was using him as a pawn to win the game.

A pervasive whooshing sound pulsated through the forest, accompanied by the manic rustling of the leaves and soil rolling wildly about. He lifted his eyes up to the skies and found dark smoke being spun away from the mountain and into the clouds. He had seen a similar vortex before while watching his siblings complete a mission. He had no doubt in his mind that that vortex could only be created by someone with super speed to cut off the oxygen feeding the fire.

As the world around him darkened in a mixture of leaves, dust and smoke, Leo took a deep breath in and held it. Only a few more seconds, and this would be over. He closed his eyes to shield it from the debris whipping around, and then buried it in the safety of his forearms.

He heard a high-pitched screech at a distance.

Then, everything dissolved to nothing.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying down on the same dull cement he had woken up to countless times, in the same position he had fallen into when each corner of that simulation room first turned. He tried to get up, but all the aches in his body prevented him from moving too quickly. As he attempted to reorient himself instead, he noticed the absence of the smell of smoke. He sniffed a sleeve of his shirt, expecting there to be even just the slightest hint of it. After all, the pipes in the room did emit them before the simulation activated, didn't they?

He smelled nothing.

That was not real either.

The sick feeling in his stomach that he felt earlier came back, expanding suddenly and much more forcefully that Leo jolted up to his hands and knees. He crawled as quickly as he could manage towards the sizeable drainage a few paces away, and then bent over the uncanny opening to expel the acid and whatever contents his body wanted him to expel. However, after a few false starts, he decided that it was not going to happen.

As he continued to lean on the cement, heaving air in and out to stabilize his insides, he couldn't help but think about his family. He wanted to go home. It didn't even matter if they don't want to speak to him anymore after all that he had done. He just wanted them to be there, where he could touch them and speak to them and know that they did not just exist in his imagination.

He just wanted to be with them. He just wanted to wake up.

It was then that he felt it, two light taps against the back of his right hand. One, two. He opened his eyes and stared. In an act of alarm, he brought up the same hand to his face and gently dabbed its side underneath his nose.

The soft knit on his brows cleared when he brought it down to see it.

Blood, smeared deep and brightly within the crevices of his skin, serving like an indefinite scarlet mirror that reminded him that there was no way out—and that defeat was his reality.

* * *

_to be continued._


	8. Eight

_Thank you to LabGirl2001, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, AllAmericanSlurp, Lady Cougar-Trombone and Jillie chan for the reviews! I know I still owe X and Jill responses; I'll try to get to it ASAP. :)_

_Please note that the events on this chapter overlaps with the events of last chapter._

* * *

_Eight._

The lack of noise in the lab was deafening. At least, to Torrance it was. At 7:13 in the morning, the day was just beginning for the family she was staying with. She woke up two hours earlier than they did, which was according to her usual schedule, so she had gotten a chance to watch them wake up and move about. They were a little sluggish, and most of them had bloodshot eyes. She guessed they didn't sleep very well either, not only because they were still thinking about the welfare of their missing family member, but also because they were still apprehensive when it came to her being there.

The parents of the household along with their daughter had gone upstairs not too long ago to prepare breakfast. The eldest of the siblings, who had been kind enough to greet her a good morning with a smile, had vanished into one of the rooms in the back in search of his backpack a few minutes ago.

Chase stayed behind, a brooding and guarded expression on his face as he busied himself with setting up search parameters using the mission specialist desk.

Torrance petted Linux, who had chosen to go to sleep some time ago after his annoyance of having been left with the two teens that refused to speak to and even look at each other got the best of him. She knew that Chase's muteness and foul attitude were due to her presence. He still didn't trust her, and he obviously still didn't want her to be there. Oddly enough, she didn't feel indignant. She understood. Plus, he was right in not trusting her anyways.

Chase's phone dinged for what seemed like the fifth time. Torrance heard him pick it up from the desk.

He scoffed after he read it.

Out of the sender's persistence, Chase's phone dinged again for the sixth time, just as Adam was walking out from the back tunnel. "Okay, if that phone goes off again, Chase…" Adam threatened, notably irritated.

"Just ignore it," Chase frowned heavily at the desk as he adjusted something.

Adam picked up his brother's phone. "Who is it anyways?"

Chase grabbed it from him with a glare. He sighed as he leaned back on his seat. He shot a quick, wilting glance at Torrance, who excellently pretended not to notice, before answering, "Mathai. She's been texting me since last night."

A disgusted expression wrought Adam's face. "Ooh, that mean girl?" he asked. "What does she want?"

Chase shook his head. "I don't know. She's been apologizing for missing our date. She's even trying to put the blame on me." He pocketed his phone after setting it on silent. "Are all girls like that?"

"No. Probably not," Adam said. "Ayanna's nice to me, and Tasha's nice to Mr. Davenport and to us. Bree's kinda good, too. I guess it really just depends on the girl."

Chase said nothing. Then, he pointedly addressed Torrance, "What about you, Girl with No Name? Are you like her, too?"

Torrance looked up and saw the subtle but very tangent glower in his eyes. She also caught a glimpse of Adam's mortified expression. Instead of getting intimidated, she stared at Chase directly. "A liar?" she asked.

Chase didn't respond.

"If I say yes and I am liar, how can you tell if I'm telling the truth?" Torrance said.

Chase continued to glare.

Behind him, however, Adam suppressed a grin, seeing that his little brother seemed to have met his match.

Torrance resumed petting Linux until he got up after having sensed the presence of his favorite newly met person. She watched as the dog trotted towards Adam, who had knelt down to accept him into his arms. For a moment, she forgot Chase and remembered Leo as she observed the oldest Davenport interact with the animal. Linux had never been this friendly to anyone else besides Leo. Now, it looked like someone would be rivaling him for his own pet's affection.

The smallest of smiles pulled at Torrance's lips when she imagined both boys playing with the dog, how chaotic but happy that would be.

Unbeknownst to her, Chase had felt a tug somewhere within him when he saw her expression light up. He dismissed the warm feeling immediately, reasoning that it only came about due to lack of proper sleep and the waves of various emotions that had been hitting them constantly. It was nothing. Surely, it was.

An urgent alarm rang throughout the lab, making all three teens to look up at the screen. Chase stood up from his seat when he saw the message flashing on it. "A mission alert." He quickly swiped up the message to read the details. A live feed from a news station in Goshen, Virginia unraveled before him, and underneath was a caption of the mission objective. "Wildfire in Goshen, Virginia. It's getting out of control," he said.

Torrance slowly rose from her seat as she remembered the familiar scenery that was being consumed by the flames. "That's Douglas Davenport's old facility," she noted. She looked at Chase then Adam. "The electromagnetic field that had gone off must have started it."

Chase thought about it and remembered the whirring sound he heard the last time he and his siblings were there. He shot an anxious glance at Adam.

Adam nodded. "I'll go get Mr. Davenport."

"No need. We're right here." Donald, with Tasha close by, strode in towards his cyberdesk while looking down at the tablet in his hand. Bree came in not long after and joined her brothers. "You guys need to suit up. According to reports, four firemen had gone in fifteen minutes ago and had not been heard from. They could be trapped in there."

The three obeyed immediately, stepping into their capsules to get ready for the mission.

Donald turned to Torrance. "You mentioned that an electromagnetic field went off," he said to her. "How did that happen?"

"I'm not sure. It must have been triggered when Leo Dooley uploaded the antivirus to Adam, Bree and Chase Davenport's chips," she replied.

A whooshing sound came off from the capsules as Adam, Bree and Chase stepped out in their mission suits.

Donald nodded. "Okay," he said. He picked up his tablet then began typing in commands. "I'm checking if the electromagnetic field is stable," he told his children. "Make sure you have your com sets on at all times. I need our line of communication to be uninterrupted. This is a dangerous mission, and I need you three to come back home safe. Understood?"

The three nodded, knowing well that their father was speaking out of pure concern.

"Let's grab our gears," Chase told Adam and Bree.

"Wait." Tasha walked towards the large screen, her brows lightly knitted out of having noticed something disturbing. She pointed at the news feed playing in the middle. "Look."

A few feet behind the male news reporter, who seemed to have also noticed that something odd was going on, was one of the firefighters. He was lying down on the ground, half-conscious, his skin and clothing darkened by the thick smoke he had been rescued from. He slowly turned on his side, coughing out the smoke from his lungs.

Despite their apparent confusion, the medics made their way towards him, but before they could reach him, a greenish blur zoomed in and out of the screen.

Another firefighter appeared.

Donald, Chase and Adam stared in shock.

Bree gasped. "Is that…?"

The medics seemed to have been glued on their spots as they stared at the firefighter that just appeared. Unlike the first, this one was conscious. He was sitting up, a hand on his temples as he tried to reorient himself. Then, he looked up at the medics with the same wide-eyed look they were giving him.

As the camera zoomed in and the reporter gave a surprised commentary, the blur appeared again, depositing another firefighter with the other two.

"That's someone with super speed!" Bree exclaimed in horror.

"And everybody just saw it," Chase said.

"No. No, it can't be." Donald accessed the satellite view of the forest and pulled it up on the screen above the mission specialist station. "Besides Marcus, you three are the only ones with bionics."

While Torrance watched, the memory of the glass room inside the facility came to her. She remembered everything in it: the capsule, the three tables, the metallic limbs. The skin, the hair. The pieces started to make sense to her, and the picture these formed when put together terrified her, especially as she thought of Leo's safety.

The same dread overcame Donald as he, too, realized something. "Vestigial," he said so softly out of shock that it was barely audible.

"Mr. Davenport?" Bree asked.

Donald drew closer to the screen, his eyes not moving away from the gray and grainy picture from the magnified satellite view showing the blur stopping at a clearing where two other beings were. When it materialized to a person, one of the other two came towards it, while the other cleared large trees out of the way effortlessly with his bare hands. Donald looked at his children. "The plan for the project. It refers to the three subjects for elimination as the V class," he said. "Vestigial."

Adam frowned. "What does that mean?" he asked.

"Vestigial means useless," Torrance said. "Project Deflection was not made to eliminate your parents and Leo Dooley. It's made to outdate the three of you."

As she boldly made her way to the cyber desk to begin a search, Chase protested, "Hey. What do you think you're doing?"

"If these three are being controlled by Douglas Davenport, that means a signal is coming into their chips," Torrance said, her fingers moving quickly across the desk. "I can use the satellite signals to triangulate where it's coming from. If we find Douglas Davenport, we might find Leo."

Chase looked up from her to his father, silently communicating the discomfort he felt of letting the girl he didn't trust have control of the desk.

Donald understood what he meant, but he shook his head. Though he agreed with his son, the solution she offered seemed to be the best they could resort to at the moment. "What do you want us to do?" he asked.

"Please update me with what's happening in the satellite feed, if you could, please, Donald Davenport," Torrance said as she continued to work. She looked up at him pleadingly. "I need them to stay in the same area while I do this."

Donald nodded.

Before resuming her work, Torrance caught sight of Chase and knew from the way he was regarding her that he didn't approve of what was happening. She shook off the hurt feeling that was beginning to form within her. She cleared her head, giving her task undivided attention, and thought about the missing boy who needed their help.

"Can't we go out there and confront them?" Bree asked.

"No. That's too dangerous," Donald said. "We don't really know what they're capable of."

"If they're like us, we stand a chance against them," Adam said in support of Bree's suggestion. "Don't we?"

"They're not necessarily like us," Chase admitted unhappily. He crossed his arms. "The blueprints omitted information about their bionics. The six of us have similarities, but we have more differences."

Torrance released a frustrated sigh as she shook her head. "He's bouncing the signals from tower to tower," she said, not stopping in her work. "It'll take a while to pinpoint the exact location of where their commands are coming from, and I'm afraid that by then they would have already left."

Donald racked his brain for a solution. "What if we upload a worm into one of the chips?" he said. "We can use the nearest tower and distribute several to devices in that general area. That way, Douglas won't suspect a thing."

Torrance thought about it. She nodded at him. "Yes. That might work," she said.

"I'll set it up," Donald said then walked towards the mission specialist desk to do what he had said.

Clicking and whirs from machines at work filled the lab for a period of time.

Then, Bree noticed something from watching the three figures on the screen. A light wrinkle wrought her brows. "It's like they're trying to save somebody that's not there," she muttered.

"What did you say, Bree?" Chase asked his older sister.

Bree marched towards the screen. "The three of them," she said. "They've rescued all of the people trapped in that wildfire, but they're still in there. Douglas sending them there to help out is weird enough. What I really don't get is why he would let these replacements stay there when the conditions could get them in serious danger."

"Maybe they're waiting for us," Adam said.

"Or they're seeing someone that we're not seeing," Bree said. She turned around and saw the confused and bewildered gazes her family was giving her. She breathed out. "Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but what if the three of them are doing this because they think they're in a simulation? And in it, they have to save these firefighters and someone else?"

"Who else would they be saving?" Chase asked.

Bree looked back on the screen. Disheartened by her own conclusions, she watched as one of the figures grabbed a non-existent person from the ground then sped away. "The same person we're trying to save," she answered him before turning towards her father who was looking at her. "Mr. Davenport, what if Douglas is using Leo to control them? What if he's the Override Code mentioned in the blueprints?"

Donald stared at her. When the possibility of what she said sank in, he quickly and intensely returned to his task, fighting against the horrible scenarios tossing violently around his head.

Torrance, too, increased her efforts in locating the origin of the commands. She knew it was an honest mistake that caused everything to end up like this, but she knew that she shared the blame. If she hadn't misinterpreted what the plan entailed, then Leo would have been at home right now with his family and not in peril. It horrified her to think about the circumstances he was being held under. She did not know much about Douglas, but if what Jessi revealed about him was any indication, that he was a man who would trample on others to satisfy his own wants, then they needed to act fast.

Donald clicked on a button. "Got it," he said, standing back up. "I've sent it. We should probably let it lay dormant for a few hours just in case. Have you traced the signals yet?"

Torrance shook her head regrettably. "It does not appear possible, Donald Davenport," she said. "I apologize."

Donald shook his head. "You tried. At least we still have this to fall back on," he said.

They watched in silence as the figure with the super speed rejoined the other two after creating a vortex that stopped the wildfire. The three remained at a spot, as if they were having a brief conversation. Then, the figure with the super speed and the one that had super strength held on to the third one. In a second, they vanished from the screen, as if they had gone in a mist.

"The third subject has geo leaping," Donald remarked in shock and dismay.

"How are we going to face them? We haven't gone against anyone with that ability before," Chase said. The frown that seemed to have permanently etched itself on his face slowly dissipated. "We haven't gone against a team with unknown abilities before," he corrected himself.

No one could offer any encouragement, because to the rest of them it had also been made clear that their aim of bringing their loved one back home was not going to be easy.

So, they let the silence of uncertainty answer him.

* * *

_to be continued._


	9. Nine

_Many thanks to Lady Cougar-Trombone, Jillie chan, LabGirl2001, phoenixfire, AllAmericanSlurp, 88keys, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, AlienGhostWizard14, and cmams3515 for the reviews! My sincerest apologies to those who I didn't get back with. I'll try to be better next time. :) _

_Special shout-out to daphrose, too, who had finished reading both _Trial and Error_ and _Search and Destroy _recently__! I'm very impressed with your abilities, ma'am! I'll try to get back with you as soon as possible. Welcome aboard!_

_Earlier update. There _will_ come a time when I can post chapters in a quicker pace, but right now I still have to make sure the details within the chapters I have in stock come together and makes sense. _

_I hope you guys enjoy._

* * *

_Nine._

"Leo… Leo, look at me."

Leo did what he asked, though hesitatingly so.

Jason smiled. "Are you mad at me?" he asked.

Leo took a deep breath and then sighed. He glanced at the window, into the darkness of the night covering the forestry outside, before casting his eyes back down to the cement floor. "No. I'm not mad at you," he said. "I'm mad at myself. You told me that Torrance was not real, and I didn't listen."

Jason shrugged. "Well, we know now, don't we? From here on out, just know—" he shook his head, "not everything will be as they appear."

Leo lifted his eyes up at him, his heart sinking a bit as he asked, "What about you? Are you not real, too?"

Jason laughed lightly. "I'm as real as you remember me," he said cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll figure it out. You're smart, you know." Jason grinned. "You got that from your mother."

A smile pulled at an edge of Leo's lips. "Am I the only one who can see you?" he asked.

Jason shook his head. "Darwin, Echo and Fielder. They know I'm here," he responded.

"So Douglas—he probably knows about you, doesn't he?" Leo asked. "The control panel must have warned him about you by now."

"Data could show results, but not necessarily answers," Jason said. "At least not always."

His father's answers puzzled Leo, but he chose not to press on anymore. He was exhausted. The test with the simulator earlier on took a lot from him, as was evident by his nose bleeding which thankfully stopped before it became too much. It hadn't been too long since he regained his strength, enough to be able to sit up and stay awake. His father reappeared somewhere within that time. After asking him how he was feeling, he urged his son to take the food from the dinner tray left there recently and eat them. He was reluctant at first, but after his father reasoned that starving himself was not conducive to his plans of escaping, he did what he was told.

He remembered his family. After seeing firsthand what Darwin, Echo and Fielder were able to do, he worried about his siblings and his parents, their safety, and the sensibleness of them coming to rescue him. "I don't know what to do now," he admitted. "I want to go home, but—I don't even know how to get out of here. And, I'm starting to think that Adam, Bree and Chase shouldn't come for me. It's too dangerous. But me staying here is not good either." He sighed. "I…I don't even know where we are."

"Of course you do," Jason said. "You've seen what's outside."

"I haven't. I've been in here since I was captured," Leo said.

"That's true, but you have indicators. Remember your dreams? Where were you and your family?" Jason asked. "And what did Darwin show you? What was outside?"

Leo thought back on it. "A beach," he said.

"Do you remember hearing or seeing something that suggests you're in a populated area?"

Leo shook his head. "No," he said. "All I saw were sand and water and trees, mostly palm. It's almost end to end." When he put all of the information together, he looked at his father, eyes wide with realization. _An island,_ he thought.

Jason nodded. "Right," he said. "And the trial with the simulator. Before it began, do you remember how the sun was shining outside?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't it shining the same way at that mountain in Virginia?" Jason asked.

Leo thought about it. It was.

"You're in a small, isolated tropical island within the same time zone as Virginia," Jason said. "So, Leo – where are you?"

Leo tried to come up with the answer, he really did, but his mind was drawing blanks. It disheartened him that he couldn't even think to save his life, and for a second he felt disappointed in himself for not being smarter.

"Hey. Don't do that," Jason told his son firmly but also warmly. "You have all of these information now. The answer will come to you. You just have to wait."

"But how long?" Leo asked. "Dad, I don't have enough time. Every second I waste here is just—" he closed his mouth to prevent himself from erupting because of the frustration he felt. He took a breath and sought for any memory to calm him down. When an image came to him, he smiled a small smile. "They're really good people, you know? Just the best. Like Adam? He's my oldest brother. He's funny. He picks on Chase a lot, though, and they always end up fighting, but I know that he cares a lot about him. He cares a lot about Bree and me, too.

"Oh! And Bree. She's my older sister. You know—" he chuckled, "it's kind of scary whenever I think about how she seems to be becoming like a mini-Mom. I don't think she even realized that she'd picked up on some of her habits. You should have seen it that day, Bree doing her homework and Mom doing some bookkeeping. Ah, I still regret not taking a picture. They just… they have this same broody look on their faces.

"Having Bree around is great, not only because Mom now has someone to do girl things with, but because she also looks out for me. She told me before that she lectures me on some stuff because she wants me to be a good person, and I know before I don't want to listen but—now I do. That's all I want to do. Just listen.

"Then there's Chase." Leo shook his head. "He's a great guy. He's a great older brother. He's my best friend. Well, actually, Adam and Bree are my best friends, too, but, Chase and I have just gone through more things. He's a really cool guy. I wish I had told him that before so he would have known. He's a little insecure, and he thinks everybody thinks he's lame, but that's not true. I really don't think he is. "

After a pause, Leo continued, "Big D's my dad. I mean, you're always going to be my dad, but now he's my dad, too. He's… I don't know. He likes himself, that much I can say. He's also a little eccentric, but after a while you just get used to it. But even if he's like that, he's a good guy, too. He's a genius. I think what I like the most about him is how he loves Mom. He treats her like a queen. The guy loves me, too, I think. He always tried his best to be a good father—for my siblings, for me. That's what's great about him. The moment that you think that being a genius billionaire is the most important for him, he does something to prove to you that he's a father and a husband first. To him, that's the most important thing he could be. I know that even if he wouldn't say it."

Jason smiled when Leo looked at him.

Leo smiled back, though his expression was slightly overshadowed by the sadness he felt from missing them. "What am I gonna do, Dad?" he asked. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Kid, whoever you're talking to, he's not there."

Leo sharply turned his head to look at the person who spoke behind him. When he saw him standing at the wide open door, lights from the dismally gray corridor outside flooding in from behind him, he looked back down on the cement floor in between him and his father.

Douglas, with his arms crossed, peered at him with both curiosity and worry. "How long have you been seeing things out of the simulation?" he asked as he walked around.

Leo kept his mouth shut out of embarrassment and anger. Instead, he glanced at his father.

Jason watched Douglas before smirking at his son. _I told you he doesn't know_, he mouthed.

Leo blinked then looked away, not wanting Douglas to know that the person he wasn't seeing was still there.

After it became evident to him that he was not going to say anything, Douglas moved on to explain, "Hallucinations. They're side-effects of the chip implant. The current from the program tends to create some imbalance in your brain, which could make you see things that aren't there." He seemed to ponder what he was going to say next first, whether he should say it at all. Then, distantly, "I'm under no obligation to tell you this, but since you're a part of it you might as well know: simulations create a massive strain on your nervous system. Brain activity independent from the chip and the program will start degrading over a period of time. It began earlier, after the first test." He paused, for a moment almost sounding as if he pitied him. "You only have roughly forty-eight hours to think on your own. After that, you'd be living the rest of your life inside simulations, with me controlling your every move, every want, every fear."

Leo fought the inclination to act upon the terrible torrent of emotions that overwhelmed him. He kept his eyes on the ground, his jaws softly locking.

"Don't worry. It won't be as bad as you think," Douglas continued. "You won't feel the things you feel now after that happens. You won't be scared anymore, or angry. You won't feel guilty. Can you imagine? You making Darwin, Echo and Fielder do all kinds of terrible things, and you won't even feel bad for it. Commit all kinds of wrong towards people, and you'll still sleep well at night. You won't be bound by a conscience anymore. Doesn't that make you feel free?"

It sickened Leo to hear and to think of all of those, but he said nothing about it.

"Get a good night's rest. I have to run some more tests tomorrow," Douglas said. Then, he walked out.

The loud clank of the knob as Douglas shut the door behind him bounced off the walls of the simulation room. The electric current infallibly came afterwards, but Leo didn't hear it. All he could hear was a clock ticking steadily at a distance, reminding him that he soon would run out of time.

Jason smirked. He shook his head. "He may be smarter, Leo," he said, "but he's still prone to mistakes. And that mistake will get you out of here."

Leo didn't look at him because now, he doubted his truthfulness, too.

The smirk on Jason's face diminished to a ghost of a smile. He sighed. "What is one divided by one?"

Instead of answering, Leo lifted his eyes towards the window. He saw the bright silver drops of moonlight glowing in the dark upon the trees outside that facility. The leaves rustled as a warm breeze swept past the island, and as it wafted into the room he smelled the scent of the ocean, probably now darkened and made perilous by the night.

These made him yearn for home, because he was tired of being alone.

* * *

_to be continued._


	10. Ten

_Many thanks to the following people: AlienGhostWizard14, LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Jillie chan, AllAmericanSlurp, daphrose, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, and Mickey12Boo! I appreciated the continuous support, guys. :)_

_One of my favorite chapters in this story. It's definitely in the top three._

* * *

_Ten._

Chase woke up to the sound of a soft snap. When he opened his eyes, he saw his father finishing up his rewiring work on what appeared to be an upgraded simulator visor. Bree stood beside him, quietly reading out commands from the tablet in her hands. Nearby, on the mission specialist desk, Torrance was lightly frowning down at the panel as she typed then adjusted something, with Tasha standing over her, sipping what smelled like coffee as she watched.

His capsule hissed when he stepped forward, the glass sliding down in front of him. Before he could go on farther, he stopped then stared at what was on his way.

Sensing this, Linux awoke, too, from his sleep. He rolled onto his back, lifted up his head, and then stared back at Chase amiably.

Donald suppressed a chuckle after seeing the boy and the dog's exchange. "Good morning, Chase," he said with a smirk. "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Yes, a little bit," Chase said, his brows lightly knitting as Linux continued to stare at him. Looking up at his family for help, he stammered, "Um…"

"Linux, please," Torrance called out to the dog.

Seeing that the boy was not going to play with him, Linux got up then trotted towards Torrance. With a smile, Torrance rewarded his obedience with a piece of doggy biscuit, which he accepted gladly and gratefully. As he ate beside her, Torrance also pushed his new toy close by so he could play after he was done.

"Why does he do that?" Bree asked Torrance just as Adam came in, hugging four bottles of orange juice to his chest. "The first two nights, he slept close by you, but then last night he started sleeping by our capsules. Oh. Thanks, Adam," she said after he handed her a bottle.

"It is what he's trained to do," Torrance answered.

"To do what, exactly?" Chase asked.

Torrance poised to answer, but Adam spoke for her. "To watch out for us," he said before handing his little brother an orange juice. Then, he came by the mission specialist desk and handed Torrance a bottle, too. He smiled at her conspiratorially as she took it with reluctance. "Leo trained him to do that. Didn't he, Torrance?"

Seeing that Adam did this to help, Torrance smiled back. "Yes. Yes, he did," she said.

Bree exchanged puzzled looks with her father.

Instead of lingering on that new piece of information about the girl, which Chase suspected might not even be true, he nodded towards the device in his father's hands. "What are you working on, Mr. Davenport?" he asked.

"A more advanced simulator. Unlike the one that you, Adam and Bree train with, this one can record your vitals for monitoring," Donald said. After glancing at Torrance, he said, "I think we found a way to connect to Douglas' simulator."

"So – we know where Leo is?" Chase said.

"No. Not quite," Torrance said. "I tracked down the bug Donald Davenport embedded on one of the subjects' chips at a South American island, but the exact location is yet to be determined."

"Well, if that's the case, then how can we be connected to Douglas' system?"

"We're not yet connected," Torrance said.

"We're just about to test it," Donald added.

Torrance explained, "Once the set-up is done, Donald Davenport and I will route the signal towards the same directions Douglas Davenport bounced it off to. Follow the breadcrumbs, if you may."

"If there are breadcrumbs, shouldn't we already know where the end point is?" Chase asked.

"That's the problem," Donald said. "Before we could get any closer, the trail just vanishes. We just get faint traces of things."

"But traces are something we can work with," Torrance said. "I've programmed the simulator to follow any bits it could find. It's bound to connect to Douglas Davenport's somewhere along the way, especially when it picks up where the bug is."

"Why don't we try it now?" Chase asked.

"It's not that easy, Chase," Donald said. "Because we're not sure of the location, we can only do this once. If we don't get it in one go, we might not get a chance to connect to it again, _especially_ if Douglas finds out we figured out a way to locate him. And plus, I had to redo some things in the simulator so it won't be as dangerous. I need to be able to pull out whoever's going to wear this out of the simulation in case something bad happens."

"Wait. If it's a simulator that's making those other three bionic people do what they do, why can't we just send a virus to destroy it?" Adam asked. "Like what Leo did with our Triton app?"

"Because," Donald said, "if what Bree said was right, that Leo is somewhat connected to the simulator there, it could hurt him."

The silence between them was interrupted by the mission specialist desk's beeping. Torrance checked on the message displayed on it before telling Donald, "Everything is ready."

Donald nodded. He looked around at his family. "As much as I'd like to be the one to put this on, just to be safe, I can't. I have to be at the controls," he said. "This simulator is similar to the one you guys train with, but it's different at the same time. This one presents potential neural strain."

"Potential?" Bree repeated.

"If the simulator on the other side_ is_ connected to a person, it will create a link with ours, and the person on that side and the person on this side will be connected," Donald explained. "Thus, the strain."

No one spoke for a while as the rest of them contemplated over the information. It wasn't that they were unwilling; it was that they were apprehensive with the possible results.

But then, soon after, someone spoke, "I'll do it." They looked at Tasha and found her smiling warmly. "I haven't seen my baby in a while. If he's really on the other side of this and I could see him, then I'll do it." She placed down her empty cup on the floor. With a deep breath, she walked over to her husband. "So, after I wear this, what do I have to do?"

"Tasha, are you sure you want to do this?" Donald asked worriedly. "There's no guarantee that it's going to be Leo. What if it's Douglas who's connected to it?"

"Then he's going to need someone to pull _him_ out," Tasha said with a smirk. When she saw that Donald was not satisfied with the answer and was terrified, she cupped a hand on his face and smiled consolingly. "I'll be okay," she assured him.

Donald smiled back, reaching up to take a hold of her hand and to kiss it. "Okay," he said. He looked at Adam. "Could you please bring in that chair by the elevator and put it here?"

Adam nodded before vanishing towards the smaller tunnel to retrieve the object.

Watching his parents, Chase was moved to reconsider his reluctance in volunteering. The simulator could present problems if things didn't work out well. With Torrance being half in-charge at the helm, he suspected that the chances of that happening greatly increased. The girl hadn't done anything to hurt their search, but, after the nearly six month deception that Marcus pulled just last year, he wasn't very trusting. It also didn't sit well with him that his mother could get hurt. So, before she could sit in the slightly elevated, armless white leather recliner that Adam brought in, he gently grabbed her forearm. "Please. Let me do it," he asked of her.

"Sweetheart, it's fine. Really. It's okay," Tasha said appreciatively with a chuckle.

"No, I— My bionics. It will allow me to handle the strain better," Chase reasoned. "Shouldn't it, Mr. Davenport?"

"Well, yes, it should," Donald said, "but—"

"So please. Please let me do it," Chase implored.

Tasha stared at her child, and from the expression on his face she knew that he wanted to take her place for a good reason. It was also apparent that, if he didn't go in her stead, it would make him more restless than he already was. "Okay," she granted.

Chase smiled at her gratefully as she stepped aside and allowed him to take the seat. He kept his eyes on his father as he attached the system on him after he lied down.

"If the simulator on the other side is just computer-programmed, you won't see anything. It will be blank, and it should kick you back out immediately," Donald said as he worked. "If the simulator on the other side is connected to a person, one of two things could happen: you'll either connect to them—see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel—or…"

"Or what?"

Donald smiled a small smile. "Or, you'll see them," he said, at that time finishing. He stepped backwards to the desk. "Best case scenario, the two of you will be in a neutral simulation where you can talk."

Chase nodded. As he looked away from his father, he caught Torrance's glance.

"Are you ready?" Donald asked.

Chase eased back on the chair, placing his hands on either side of him. "I'm ready," he said, closing his eyes.

"You have roughly two minutes in this. Take note of everything you see and remember it," Donald instructed. Then, he added, "If he's there… ask him where he is. Tell him we're coming."

Chase said nothing but kept all of these in mind.

He heard a tap. Then, Torrance spoke. "The simulators will connect in nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four—"

Her voice was soon drowned out by a loud screeching sound that made Chase cringe. He balled his hands into tight fists to prevent himself from ripping away the device from his head, and he locked his jaws tight so he wouldn't scream in pain. He told himself that he only had to endure for a few more seconds, but he also wished that the simulator would spit him back out already so everything would stop.

Sooner than what he expected, though, all noise ceased to exist, even the sound of his own breathing. All feelings did, too. Despite the inclination to do it immediately, Chase decided to count for a few more seconds before opening his eyes and asking what happened, but before he could start, he felt the room, with the chair he was in, slowly swivel upside down, and it pushed him out of his seat and onto his feet.

When he opened his eyes to reorient himself, he noticed that the falling sensation was gone. When he looked around for his family, he found that they weren't there. The simulator system, the chair and the lab were nowhere in sight, too.

Instead, he was standing in the doorway of somebody's home.

With the bright daylight streaming into the storm door, Chase was offered a good view of the home from where he stood. Straight ahead was a smaller window, shining light on the polished hardwood floor leading to the first two steps that curved towards the stairs. To his left was a living room. Pushed against the faint blue wall in that room was a wide, four-foot TV that was at least two decades old. On either side of it were bookshelves, one on the right for VHSs, CDs and DVDs and two on the left for books. Standing between the television and the cream-colored couch was a wide, dark coffee table, with puzzle pieces and a folded up newspaper cluttering it.

Walking in, Chase noted how inviting the home seemed. The feeling only increased as he looked through the several family pictures decorating the wall.

His eyes caught onto a picture as he recognized one of the people in it. It was a simple family portrait that seemed to have been taken at a park. Sitting on a bench, was a man, who looked to be in his late 20's, and a woman, who appeared to be near the same age and was hugging to herself a two year-old baby boy. The couple was smiling and appeared very happy.

The woman in the picture was a younger version of Tasha.

Chase drew closer to the picture to analyze it further and to see if his suspicion regarding the baby was right when a movement in his periphery alerted him to a movement in the connecting room. He stopped then swiveled around.

When he saw him standing by the kitchen, looking around in confusion as he seemed to recognize the place but not know why he was there, Chase froze.

_If the simulator on the other side is connected to a person, one of two things could happen: you'll either connect to them—see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel—or…_

_ Or what?_

_Or, you'll see them._

"Leo?" Chase said.

Leo spun around. He stared at him unsurely. "Chase," he said. "Is… Is that you?"

All Chase could remember as he looked at him was the last time he saw him alive like this. It was a Sunday night, and before they bid each other goodnight he was telling him that they needed to have a rematch on the game they played earlier on in that day next weekend. Leo grinned at him weakly and told him that they would. Then, the next day, he found out that he had died. The very last time he saw him, or what he thought was him, was in that green casket.

And now, standing just a few feet away from him, he was seeing Leo again—conscious, taller, and was speaking to him.

Like six months ago, Chase forced himself not to let his emotions get the best of him but this time, he failed. As tears of happiness blurred his vision, he said with a grin, "Of course it's me, you goofball." He quickly made his way around the island standing in the middle of the room to reach his younger brother. When he did, he gathered him into his arms and hugged him.

Leo grumbled a little bit because of how tight Chase was hugging him, but he said nothing, and he didn't embrace him back.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Chase asked.

"No," Leo said. "Because you're not real."

Chase frowned as he let go of him. He chuckled wryly. "What are you talking about? I _am_ real," he said. "Leo, I'm here. This is me. This simulation, Mr. Davenport's controlling it from the lab."

"From the lab?" Leo repeated, his tone almost fearful. "You – you guys know where I am?"

"No, not yet, but we're working on it," Chase said. "Mr. Davenport and Torrance worked to put this together so we can find out where you are."

Leo considered everything he said. "Torrance. She's with you guys?" he asked.

Chase nodded, though he was slightly bewildered that he asked about the girl instead of answering his implied question. "Yes," he replied. "She came to us for help a few days ago. She told us you're alive but that you were captured. She's in the lab right now, supervising with Mr. Davenport."

It was Leo's turn to nod. He still seemed hesitant to address him, until he looked up and noticed something on the fridge.

Chase turned around to look at what Leo was staring at.

Leo plucked out the sizeable green post-it note pinned under a magnetic photo of a younger Tasha and a younger man, who now Chase guessed was Leo's father, sitting on a tropical beach, and then read the note on it.

Curiously, Chase glanced at the message as he watched Leo think deeply. _One plus one. This is real_, it said.

Leo smiled when he understood. "What do you think of Torrance?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Chase asked.

Leo shrugged. "I mean, what do you think of her?" he said.

Chase thought of how he could answer appropriately. Leo and Torrance were supposedly good friends, and he didn't want to say anything negative about her and upset his brother. At the same time, he didn't want to lie.

"You don't trust her, do you?" Leo asked knowingly. When Chase said nothing, he said, "Ah, I don't blame you. I didn't trust her either. At least not at first. And it's not like she makes it easy for people to not not to. She's so secretive. But that's the thing about her, and it's the most important thing you should know. There are many things she doesn't say, many things she keeps to herself, but—she doesn't lie, most of the time. She doesn't see the need to. That's why you should trust her, Chase. She tries her best to be honest with you, even if at times she does it brutally."

Chase shook his head. "Look, Leo, it – it doesn't matter what I think of her," he said. "What's important now is to know where you are. I don't have much time. Do you know where Douglas is keeping you?"

The smile on Leo's face waned down to a faint curl of the lips. He shook his head.

"You don't know?" Chase asked, the hope he held dwindling considerably.

"No. I'm saying you shouldn't come for me," Leo corrected.

Chase stared.

"Chase, it's too dangerous."

"Dangerous—Leo, that's not what I'm asking! We know it will be dangerous," Chase said. "If you're worried about us having to go against those three other bionic kids, we don't care. We're going to manage. What's important is that you come back home. Do you even know how long—"

"I'm dying."

Chase stopped. "What?"

"Coming for me will just be a waste of time, because I'm dying," Leo said. When he saw that his brother still didn't understand, he slowly raised up his left hand to show him, wincing as the pain shot up through his arm.

Chase's features curved into an expression of shock and pity as he beheld Leo's heavily bandaged wrist.

Leo explained, "The simulator. I'm not connected to it the way you probably are with the one in the lab. This one is in me. It's a chip inside my wrist. Douglas said that the more simulations I go under, the more I won't be able to tell what's real and what's not. I'll lose control of my own brain. Then it'd get to the point that I'm not…me, anymore." He smiled an empty smile. "I don't know how many hours I have left."

Chase sighed as he racked his brain for a solution. "A few hours is still a few hours," he reasoned patiently. "If you know where you are, if you tell me now, we can get ready, and—"

"It's not that easy, okay?" Leo blurted out in frustration. "Douglas – He put target marks on yours, Adam's, Bree's and Torrance's backs. The moment you come here, Darwin, Echo and Fielder will go after you—"

"So what?" Chase fired back. "You don't think we can put up a fight against them?"

"That's just it, Chase. The three of you are the ones who always do the fighting," Leo said. Then, calmly he added, "But not this time. Not anymore. This is my problem to pick up and solve."

Chase laughed humorlessly, shaking his head. "So, what am I supposed to tell everyone when I come back? 'Hey, Leo knew where he was, but he said it wasn't a good idea for us to go there so we should probably just sit here and wait. See where this takes us,'" he said snidely. "Do you know how hard it is to carry on with your life after someone you really love dies? I'll tell you right now, it's the most horrible thing I've ever gone through. It killed me, and it killed everybody else! And now that we have a chance to see you again, to get you back, you're acting like this." He scoffed. "What am I supposed to tell Adam and Bree? They're waiting right now, at the lab. And what about Mr. Davenport? He's been working hard, and he probably didn't sleep last night just to be able to put this simulator together." He hitched his shoulder resignedly. "What about our mom?"

Leo avoided his gaze out of guilt. "Tell them I'm sorry I did this to all of you. What I did was wrong," he said contritely. "These things that are happening to me, this is probably what I deserved for doing that, but… But I can't let you put yourselves in danger for me. I'm not going to watch all of you die. It's happened before, with my dad, and I couldn't do anything about it then. I'm not gonna let it happen again."

"But—"

Leo encased him in a one-armed hug. Chase could tell from his weaker grasp that he didn't have much energy to expend, and it was most likely due to the chip on his wrist. "I'm glad I got a chance to talk to you again, man. Thank you," he said, sincerely happy.

"If you do this, I will _never_ forgive you."

Slowly, Leo let go. Chase could tell from his expression that what he said scared and hurt his little brother, but he didn't regret it. He was willing to take whatever necessary measures were available to get him to cooperate.

But, instead of doing so, Leo just smiled sadly. "Please tell everyone I'm sorry and that I love them, all of you, very much," he said. Then, after thinking about something, "Tell – Tell my Anna, too, that Guillermo said hi."

"You're coming home, so you tell them yourself," Chase responded quietly but vehemently.

The same familiar loud screech blasted from a distance suddenly, and it again made Chase cringe from it.

"Goodbye, Chase," Leo's calm but muffled voice came through the noise.

In the darkness caused by him shutting his eyes tightly to fight the pain, Chase felt the room turn again. He fell back, but instead of landing on the hard floor, he felt soft leather.

He opened his eyes when everything has stopped, and he found himself staring up at the ceiling in the lab.

"Time," Torrance announced weakly, as if releasing a bated breath.

"Is… Is it over?" Adam asked while Chase was sitting up.

Donald nodded. "How was it?" he asked Chase. "Did you find anything useful?"

"No," Chase answered darkly.

"So, the simulator – we can destroy it?" Bree asked hopefully.

"We can't." Chase brashly pulled out the simulator system from himself then left them in tangles on the chair when he got up. "We do that, we kill Leo."

"What?" Donald asked.

"Douglas is controlling everything through one chip. And he wired that chip inside him," Chase said. "Leo told me that each simulation messes more and more with his brain. He loses control, and he's going to continue losing control until…" he trailed off, not wanting to provide any more details.

"If that's the case then, we should go get him," Adam said.

"How?" Chase asked. "How can we get him if we don't know where he is?"

"He didn't tell you?" Donald asked.

Chase shook his head. "Apparently, Douglas has set up a trap for us," he said. "He didn't tell me because he didn't want us to get hurt."

A thick silence befell them as they all thought over the situation. Adam felt lost. Bree, who had been hoping since yesterday that her theory was wrong, felt crushed by being proved right. Donald tried to come up with another solution but had to face the fact that, at the moment, there was nothing he could do.

Tasha felt a weight of grief come upon her and so sank down on the leather chair. "So I'm never going to see him again," she spoke out as the thought came to her.

As Chase stared at the woman he accepted as his mother, he felt pity overpower the anger he had. He also felt remorse. Perhaps it would have been better to have let her go to see Leo. That way, she would have had a chance to talk to her son. It would have done so much to lift up her sorrow.

But then again, maybe it was for the better that she didn't. Leo was in a terrible shape, and maybe it was good that she didn't see it. The exuberance his younger brother once had was not there anymore. He didn't make any jokes; he spoke softly. He questioned reality, questioned the possibility of him seeing and receiving something good. Pain had dominated most of him. It hurt Chase to think back on the hug he was given. Leo's grip was weak, and it was evident with the subtle way his hand shook as he backed away that the chip was causing him to lose some of his motor functions, too.

And how would she have taken that? Knowing that he had a few hours left, suffering like that?

Torrance, also bearing a burden of her own after hearing what Chase had said, offered, "I will try to retrace the signal again. Maybe we'll be able to narrow down the exact location better since we made contact."

Donald nodded, accepting the suggested solution, but it was evident that he wasn't as optimistic as earlier.

Chase, however, felt differently. "No. You've done enough," he said, turning towards her bitterly. "In fact, you know what? This is all your fault."

"Chase," Adam warned.

"If you hadn't interfered, this wouldn't have happened," Chase continued. "Because of you misinterpreting that blueprint, we're in this situation. You've gotten us all involved because you felt like you have the right to dig around someone else's life. You justify it by saying that you did it to help out, but are you really? Is this what you call helping out?"

Before Donald could stop them, Torrance spoke up. "Misinterpreted or not, the results would have been the same, Chase Davenport," she said defensively. "If I had not stepped in, you and your older siblings would have died, and Leo would have ended up being alone, defenseless, under Douglas Davenport's control."

"But you didn't stop that last part from happening, did you? You just _delayed_ it," Chase said. "He's still alone, suffering. And that's all because of you."

Torrance continued to look at him with an unwavering gaze, but it showed from the swift way her emerald eyes lost their fire that he had said something that had extinguished it. Her stare soon became soft. She took a deep breath to compose herself as much as she could, and then she turned towards Donald. "Donald Davenport, may I be excused?" she asked.

Donald shot Chase a disappointed glance before nodding at Torrance. "Yeah," he said.

Torrance nodded back. She got up from her seat, and then made her way towards the elevator.

As he watched her leave, Chase's anger melted, and he was soon flooded with remorse.

When she was gone, Adam frowned at Chase. "Sheesh, Chase. The girl was just trying to help. Why do you always have to pick on her like that?" he asked. After huffing, he beckoned Linux to come with him. Soon, they too vanished to where Torrance had gone to.

Knowing that her son was feeling guilt, Tasha placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll go talk to her," she said.

Chase waited for his father to say something after Tasha followed Adam and Torrance upstairs, but he didn't. Instead, Donald proceeded to dismantle the simulator system, starting by wheeling the recliner out of the room.

That, to him, was worse.

"Was I wrong?" Chase posed the question mostly to Bree but also to himself.

Bree walked up to his side, her arms crossed. "Not entirely," she said. "But, I think you and I are going to have to reconsider a few things, mostly about who we blame." She looked at him. "Adam was right. She was really giving it her best shot during the simulation to help."

One glance at her told Chase that his sister was right. He had no reason to doubt Torrance anymore. Leo had told him that she was trustworthy, and his family had seen the proof. Excluding her like that was not fair. He didn't know what he had said to hurt her, but he knew he had to right that, too.

He had to find her and apologize to her.

* * *

_to be continued._


	11. Eleven

_Many thanks to AlienGhostWizard14, Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, Jillie chan, AllAmericanSlurp, daphrose, and xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx for the reviews! I know I have yet to get back to two of you; I'll try to do that soon. _

_I just want to note something, because the thought had been bothering me a bit: I really hope no one thinks I'm bashing Chase by the way I write him. He's one of my favorite characters in the show. By no means is he a bad guy in this. He's just conflicted, and he acted in a way a number of us would have acted if we were placed in his situation. It's great to see that most of you guys understand, but in case you're someone who may have wondered about it as you read, just know that I respect Chase as a character. Dude is one of my dudes. (Figuratively.) _

_Anyways, it might take a while for me to update again. Apparently, as the temperature gets higher, so does the amount of workload and projects. Chapter Twelve should be posted sometime this weekend, but after that we may go on a break until May. Hopefully, by then, we can do a rapid fire with the chapters. ;)_

* * *

_Eleven._

Torrance wordlessly watched the beautiful Californian sunrise while the wooden garden swing gently rocked her back and forth. The view ahead awed her. The sky, bright and blue above and crisp and golden near the ocean line, was spectacular, and the waters, so deep and serene and constant, were breathtaking. The cool breeze that wafted through the garden, perfumed by the moonflowers and the hyacinths planted meticulously around the wide and colorful Davenport backyard, fueled the warmth she felt towards the nature that surrounded her. It had been a while since she last took the time to stop and actually see the world in its splendor. She was glad that this morning, she had that chance again.

She heard the door to the house click then roll open, but she didn't bother to see who was coming. She suspected it was Adam again, probably checking on her one more time to ask her if she was really okay.

However, who came towards the empty side of the swing was someone else.

Tasha smiled, holding up a plate of sandwich and a glass of milk for Torrance to see. "On my way up, I remembered that you haven't really had anything to eat since yesterday morning," she said. "You didn't eat much then, either." Torrance stared at the food. She opened her mouth to politely decline, but Tasha insisted, "Please take these. I made it especially for you."

Torrance was resolved to decline, but one look at the mother of the household prompted her to reconsider. The edges of her lips curled lightly into a grateful smile. "Thank you, Tasha Davenport," she said as she reached for the food.

"You're welcome," Tasha said. She gestured towards the empty space beside her. "May I?"

"Please," Torrance said.

Tasha sat down. She waited until Torrance had finished her first bite before saying, "You know, it seems like all that was ever made about you since you came are judgments. In my case, at least, because I don't know much about you."

Torrance said nothing; she knew.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?" Tasha said. Torrance waited for a weighted question. However, all she was asked was, "How old are you?"

Torrance looked at her, just to make sure she heard her right. Confirming that she did, she answered amiably, "I'm sixteen."

"Sixteen! Wow," Tasha grinned as she leaned back on the swing. "You're pretty much a new driver, huh?"

Torrance smiled, finding the mother's enthusiasm refreshing.

"But you're really good with computers," Tasha mused. "How did you learn how to do that?"

"My last foster father taught me how to," Torrance answered, deciding that Tasha didn't pose any threat and was therefore someone she could trust with information like this. "I started learning when I was nine."

Tasha nodded. "Do you go to school?" she asked.

Torrance smiled sadly. She shook her head.

Tasha nodded again. "Okay," she said. "I just asked, because you seem to be a really smart young lady. You must be. Adam told me that you said you also taught Leo how to do what you do."

"Leo already has a good start with it. All I had to do was build up on what he already knows," Torrance said.

"But he hacked into his stepdad's company all by himself," Tasha said in shock and amazement. "I don't really know the scope of what he can do prior to meeting you, but that sounded like he had to learn a lot. And he created an antivirus to destroy that dumb app? All of these in just six months?"

"Your son gets bored easily," Torrance explained succinctly.

"Ah, figures," Tasha said.

"He was also determined to keep on moving so he could find Douglas Davenport and destroy the app," Torrance added. "Even if the conditions are terribly hard, he kept trying, and so he learned."

Tasha smiled tenderly as she thought about her child. "Well, let's just hope that he doesn't use that to snoop around other people's business," she said.

Torrance took another bite of the sandwich. Afterwards, she washed it down with the milk.

"You know… Torrance, right? You know, Torrance, I've been meaning to ask," Tasha said, "why do you refer to people with their full name? Like, you call me Tasha Davenport and Adam Adam Davenport. Why do you do that?"

A great sadness overcame Torrance as she thought of the answer to the question. However, as always, she was able to conceal that emotion successfully. "It keeps everything in their proper place," she said quietly. "You cannot build friendships with someone you address constantly with formality."

"So, does that mean you and Leo are friends?"

Torrance looked at her.

Tasha smiled a half smile. "He's the only one you ever call by his first name," she pointed out.

Torrance broke from her gaze. Slowly, she turned away. "I cannot have friends, Tasha Davenport. They will only get hurt, because the load I bear is too much," she said. "The last friend I have ended up in jail, and that's because I put her there."

"I know this is not my place to say but—you're too young to be carrying things like these by yourself. You're just sixteen," Tasha said sympathetically. "You need to have someone to help you."

Torrance's lips curled into a faint, consoling smile. "That is a luxury I cannot afford," she said honestly but not meanly. "No matter how much I want to."

"You mentioned that you have a foster father," Tasha said.

"I had one, yes. Many years ago," Torrance replied. "He and his wife – used to be my foster mother – were very kind to me. But then things did not work well, and they gave me back."

Tasha allowed a while to pass by before speaking again, mostly because she needed it due to the things she was finding out. "Did you… Did you get to meet them?" she asked hesitatingly. "Is it okay for me to ask?"

"About my real parents?"

Tasha shook her head. "You know what? Maybe I shouldn't," she recanted with a smile. "Just forget I asked."

Torrance, again, said nothing. She looked up when she noticed a small group of birds flying above. She watched them as they traveled onwards to the ocean. "My mother died before I turned one. That's what the police reports said," she said. "One of the men Ernest Carlisle sold drugs to came over the house, looking for some. My mother told him that she didn't have any, and she didn't know where they were, but the man didn't believe her. He tried to come in, but she wouldn't let him. I guess she did it to protect me. There was an altercation, and then…she's gone." She took a deep breath. "The police arrested the man for murder and arrested Ernest Carlisle for possession of narcotics and for selling them."

"Ernest Carlisle, is he… He's family?" Tasha asked.

Torrance nodded weakly. "He's my father," she said.

Tasha leaned back further on her seat as a strong feeling of sympathy inundated her, truly regretting then that she even asked.

Torrance continued. "I had been in the foster system since then," she related. "He has made no attempts to visit me or get me back, so I've only met him through the pictures on the file. The same with my mother."

Even if she wanted to, Tasha avoided looking at Torrance so as not to embarrass her. Instead, she transitioned to her own story to lessen the unease the girl might feel. "You know, at one point, my first husband and I considered adopting a foster kid," she said, gazing ahead. "This is when we really thought we'd never have our own child. Things didn't seem like they would ever work out, and we wanted to have our own family. It didn't really matter to us what he or she looked like. We just wanted someone we can love. His family gave us a hard time about _that_, of course, but that's a different story. Anyways, we were on our way to get started, and then Leo decided to show up."

Torrance continued to watch her, listening intently.

Tasha smiled at her. "Now I'm wondering, if we had continued on, what are the chances of us crossing paths?" she said. "Because, I think, we would have been fortunate to have a daughter like you."

Torrance smiled back. The way she smiled didn't differ in appearance from the other times, but there was something in its warmth, in its purity and rarity, that told Tasha that what she said was appreciated by the girl.

The garden swing rocked slightly more when Torrance leaned back. She viewed the sun rise as the ocean reflected it, eating in silence to fill her stomach before the next round of intense searching began.

* * *

_to be continued._


	12. Twelve

_Thank you to Lady Cougar-Trombone, Mickey12Boo, and LabGirl2001 for sharing your thoughts regarding last chapter! I'll send a reply as soon as I can. :)_

_Second update of the weekend and the last before our break. It's one of my favorites that hopefully you guys will enjoy._

* * *

_Twelve._

By the time the elevators opened, Chase was confident that he knew what he was going to say. He searched around the living room for Torrance while he mentally repeated the words that he wanted to tell her, in the manner that it had to be delivered. When he didn't find her there, he checked the balcony. It was empty. He then proceeded to the library, both hoping and not hoping to see her there.

That room, too, was empty.

He was tempted to go back downstairs and ask Adam one more time where the girl was, but he was positive that his brother would refuse to give him the information again. The eldest seemed to have been terribly unimpressed by his recent treatment of their visitor and had therefore insisted that, if his little brother really wanted to apologize, he was going to have to do all the work himself. Chase couldn't honestly say that he didn't understand why Adam reacted that way. The more he thought about his constant sulky and mean disposition whenever she was involved, the more he realized that he could have been better.

He was not going to justify his actions, but the truth was that uncertainty had a lot to do with his foul attitude towards her. There were so many things they didn't know, so many things that seemed false, that he found it hard to trust her. What made it harder was the news she delivered. It was beautiful in its impossibility, being told that they were going to see their loved one again, that he didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to keep his hopes up and then get disappointed. He didn't want his heart to be broken again.

But after learning from Leo that she had not lied and learning from his family that she really did mean well, he trusted her now.

He also wanted to say he was sorry for what he had done.

Chase turned to go his way to the back of the house to see if she was in the garden, but before he got far the doorbell rang. He paused, not sure whether to get the door or to continue on, but in the end he decided to act on the former. With long strides, he walked towards the door then opened it. Who he saw surprised him.

The shorter girl, with her wavy locks swept to the left side of her face, had her hands in a nervous knot in front of her. After recognizing him, she eased a little bit. She flashed the pretty smile he had known of since the first time they met, making her honey-hued eyes more disarming.

Chase blinked. "Mathai."

"Hi, Chase," Mathai said, shyly tucking her hair behind her ear.

Chase's brows wrinkled lightly in curiosity. "What are you doing here?" he asked. He glanced out to the driveway. "How did you know where I live?"

"I actually didn't. Know where you live, I mean," she said. She pointed to no particular direction behind her before explaining, "I went to where you went to high school. I was going to ask whether you visited or something because I haven't seen you around the campus for days now, and I haven't heard from you, but the principal said you haven't been there. Actually, she said that your siblings had missed school, too. I told her I was a friend from out of town and didn't know where to go, and she gave me your address."

Chase fought the urge to roll his eyes. It was unbelievable that the high school principal still didn't know how to withhold information.

After biting her lips, Mathai added, "I just… I wanted to find you and talk to you, Chase. I wanted to say I'm sorry." She hesitated to continue for a moment. She then sighed. "Theodore told me what happened and why you've been avoiding me."

Chase's frown cleared though inwardly, he still felt hurt after remembering the whole situation. He was also upset – he wanted to be upset – but then he realized that refusing her apology wouldn't be fair. As someone who was also seeking another person's forgiveness, it was only right that he grant it. "Look, Mathai, you don't have to explain everything to me," he said. "You're under no obligation to. We're not in a relationship. We barely even went out, so," he shrugged.

"But, see, that's the problem. I don't want you to think that I was never serious about wanting to go out with you in the first place," Mathai pressed on. "Chase. I like you. I really, really like you. I was looking forward to our date that night! But then you said you weren't coming and, and, and Criss was there with his friends, and my friends invited them over to our table, and – what was I supposed to do? I couldn't just ignore him."

"Wait. Are you blaming _me_ for what happened?" Chase asked carefully.

"No! Of course not! At least not entirely," Mathai said. "But, if you had been there, I would have been with you."

Unable to help himself, Chase scoffed softly in incredulity.

"I know, I know I'm not perfect," Mathai acknowledged. "But you have to at least give me some credit for putting an effort just so I can ask you for a second chance. I don't know how many times I have to say I'm sorry, but if that's what it would take for you to reconsider again, I'll do it. Chase, you're not like the other guys I've met before. All I'm asking is a second chance, please."

Chase shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mathai," he said. "Forgiveness, I can give. Second chance, it's too late."

"Too late?" Mathai repeated. "What do you mean?"

"I would explain, but I don't have the time," Chase said patiently. "Thank you for coming all the way here."

"Wait. Chase—"

"Chase Davenport?"

Both Chase and Mathai looked at her.

Torrance walked closer, her features blank as she regarded the two other teenagers.

Chase faced Mathai again, quite unsure whether he should explain or not and who he should address first.

Mathai, however, decidedly broke the silence. "Hi. I'm Mathai Dinesh-Johnson. I attend the same university Chase goes to," she introduced. She smiled. "You must be Chase's sister."

"I'm not," Torrance said plainly.

Mathai looked at Chase then Torrance then Chase again. After forming her own conclusion, she said, "Oh. I see." She then asked Chase, "When?"

"Sunday night, pizzeria at Pasadena," Chase said guiltily, knowing that that answer would need to be discussed later on when he talked to Torrance. "We met at the parking lot."

Mathai chuckled dejectedly. "Oh. Okay. Now I'm _really_ sorry," she said. "Well, I'm going to go now. I'm sorry again, Chase. I hope that, even if things didn't work out for the two of us, things would work out well for the two of you." With a quick smile at Torrance and then a longer lasting one for Chase, she waved goodbye. Then, she made her way down the driveway back to the street where she parked her car.

Chase slowly closed the door after she was gone. He turned around and faced Torrance then said, "Hi."

Torrance said nothing.

"I was looking for you because I wanted to talk to you," Chase said as he walked over to her.

"Well, here I am," Torrance said.

The neutral and nearly emotionless way she spoke to him caused Chase to be more nervous. Still, he knew she deserved to hear what he had to say, so he forced his nerves to still and just speak out. "I guess there's no better way to start off than just saying I'm sorry. I've been a jerk. I said things and did things without even really thinking about how it would affect you as a person," he said. He scratched his head. "Well, I guess I did have some kind of awareness that the things I did was affecting you in some way, but I just didn't care as much as I should. Truth is, through all these months, I've been holding you responsible for Leo not being with us. I thought you were the one who sent the letter, and I thought you were the one who caused his death. Or not really death."

He risked a glance at Torrance's face to see how she was receiving his apology, but she still held the same expression. He continued. "I guess it was easy to just think bad of you," he admitted. "And I let that rule the way I treat you, and for that I am very sorry."

Torrance ponderously stared at him for a while that Chase began thinking that his apologies couldn't afford her forgiveness. Then, she responded, "I do not find your being angry with me or being suspicious of me as problems. I did not in the beginning, and I do not now. But what creates a strain between us is your fear."

Chase frowned. "My fear?" he said.

"You are afraid of losing control," she said, and her words, though spoken gently, struck Chase hard. "It scared you six months ago when you had to fight against an enemy you cannot see. It frightened you in an unspeakable way when your brother was taken away from you, with you not being able to do anything about it. Now you're scared again. You're scared of not knowing what to do. You're scared that Leo will get hurt. You're scared that bad things will happen because of you."

Chase thought about it. She was right.

"There is nothing wrong with being afraid," Torrance told him. "It is, although, a fault to feel like you must solve every problem that comes your way by yourself."

A minute smirk tugged at an edge of Chase's lips. "I know," he agreed, lifting his eyes up to meet hers. "It's just that, that's who I am. That's who I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to be the problem-solver. When something comes up, I feel like everybody's expecting me to come up with a solution. It comes with being the mission leader, I guess. When I don't, I just feel completely lost, like I'm not good for anything."

Torrance frowned in disagreement. "Being mission leader is not your worth, Chase Davenport," she said. "You are warmth, and resilience, and intelligence, and love. These and countless more make up who you are. They are far greater than just a solution to a problem and are what your family and others are expecting from you."

The smirk on Chase's face grew into a smile.

Torrance returned the expression. "I accept your apology," she said.

Chase nodded. As a guarantee, he held out a hand. "Do over?"

Torrance shook it, ending the friction between them once and for all.

"So, what's our next move?" Chase asked.

"Retracing," Torrance said. "I doubt we will be able to make another connection. The simulation earlier was timed perfectly, but it may not be the case this time. Douglas Davenport might grow suspicious, and it might put Leo in more trouble."

"Alright."

"Even though your brother didn't tell you where he is, you still need to recount everything you saw in the simulation," Torrance added. "Hopefully there were some landmarks that he had seen, heard or smelled that he had subconsciously mentioned." Her mind then ran against a worrisome thought, and a shadow of it indistinctly darkened her features. "How is he?" she asked.

Chase understood. "Let's just say that we need to find him very soon," he replied.

Torrance nodded.

"You know, he asked me what I thought of you," Chase said.

"Did he?"

"Yeah. He said he understands about me not trusting you, but he told me that I should. He told me you were an honest person."

Torrance mulled over those words, and it produced in her lips the kind of smile that Chase was sure he hadn't seen there before. "Maybe it will be best if I go back downstairs to resume my work," she said.

"Sure. I'll come with."

Torrance led the way to the elevator, with Chase walking in right beside her. On their way down, Chase couldn't stop thinking about that smile. He knew it was only logical for her to have a different reaction when it came to Leo. They had been traveling and working together for six months, and they seemed to be really good friends.

What bothered him, however, was the unshakable hint of jealousy that kicked in somewhere within him when he thought of them becoming something more.

* * *

_to be continued. _


	13. Thirteen

_And we're finally back after the extended hiatus._

_I'd like to thank LabGirl2001, Mickey12Boo, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, Lady Cougar-Trombone, AlienGhostWizard14, AllAmericanSlurp, Jillie chan, daphrose and 88keys for the reviews. Thanks, everyone!_

_This is a double update, so after this chapter, you can head onto the next one. _

_The chapter will start off weird and maybe a bit confusing, but towards the end you'll understand what's happening. :)_

_Please enjoy._

* * *

_Thirteen._

_Anticipation filled Leo as soon as he opened his eyes. He turned over in his bed to check the time. Three minutes before the alarm he set last night goes off. He debated whether to get up or sleep for another hour and a half. After all, he didn't need to get ready until then. However, he knew that his excitement over today's big event would deprive him of any further rest, so he just turned off the alarm and got up. _

_ He picked up his phone from the nightstand on his way to the closet then grinned when he saw the countless of text messages and notices that flooded the screen. Most of the notices came from various social media apps, alerting him of posts and tweets made by people from school who he had friended and followed. It was evident from those that they, too, shared his excitement over their graduation day. His aunt also wrote something on his wall, congratulating him and his parents on the milestone he had reached. _

_ Meanwhile, the texts came from his grandmother, asking him what time the ceremony would begin._

_ The one on top, though, was from Kerry._

_ —May 23, 2015, 8:13 AM—_

_Aunt Terry will let me come. Don't worry about finding a ticket for me. I'll see ya graduate in a bit, loser _

_ He grinned._

_ He opened the door to the closet and had to pause as he beheld the royal blue cap and gown he was going to wear later on. It still seemed surreal. He had really reached the end of his high school days. Soon, he would be moving out to college, leaving behind the room that had been his for seventeen years. He knew his parents were both happy for him, but he knew they would be sad, too. He guessed that was bound to happen, what with him being the only child and all. _

_ Shaking off the sad thoughts forming in his head, he moved the set out of the way to look for the suit his grandmother bought for him for this day. When he found it, he carefully placed it on his bed. Next, he went to the dresser drawer and then pulled out the black, gray and blue checkered tie that Kerry had bought for him as an early gift. He also took out the box containing the expensive dress shoes his father bought for him from underneath his bed to complete the outfit._

_ When he was satisfied with how everything looked, he decided to come downstairs where the smell of pancakes, eggs and bacon wafted from. _

_ Halfway down the steps, he heard his mother giggling from the kitchen. He also heard his father's voice over the sizzling noise on the stove. He frowned as he continued downward, but the expression cleared when he saw that his father was just singing a silly song to his mother while she was cooking, his arms wrapped around her waist from behind. _

_ His father was the one to notice him first. "Hey! There's the man of the hour!" he said, disengaging from the hug. _

_ Leo bowed twice with a light grin on his face after his mother started clapping softly. "Thank you, thank you," he said. "I aim to please."_

_ "Breakfast is almost ready, baby," his mother said as his father began taking out plates._

_ "Okay," Leo said, climbing one of the tall chairs by the island. _

_ "So, are you excited?" his father asked._

_ "Nervous. Very nervous," Leo distractedly answered while he watched the food being placed in front of him. "Man, Mom. These look so good."_

_ Jason and Tasha exchanged glances. "Special day, special breakfast," said his mother happily as she took the chair to his right. _

_ "Orange juice?"_

_ "Just water, Dad, please?"_

_ "You got it."_

_ They began eating not long after, with both of his parents showing him extra attention. It embarrassed Leo a little bit, but he didn't reject the opportunity to be spoiled. This was something he would not have any more in just a few months. From then on, he would be on his own, and he was surely going to miss moments like these with them._

_ "Are we going to eat somewhere after the graduation?" he asked._

_ "Yeah. We're going to that Mexican restaurant by Cole Street," Jason said. "Why? You want to go somewhere else?"_

_ "No," Leo said. "It's just…I just wanted to ask because I was wondering…"_

_ "You were wondering…?" Jason prompted, though he already knew what the answer was._

_ Leo replied hesitatingly, "I was wondering if we can have another person join us."_

_ Jason nodded knowingly, grinning. "Ah," he said before looking at his wife. "Mom. Can we have another person join us?"_

_ Leo turned towards his mother, gazing at her with pleading eyes. _

_ It was evident that, at first, she didn't favor the idea. However, after looking back and forth between her husband and her son, she decided to put aside her own preference for the meantime. "As long as she doesn't do anything to get on my nerves, Leo," she said. _

_ Leo grinned thankfully. "Cool," he said and then poised to pick up his phone from the table._

_ "Uh-uh. You know the rule," his father said._

_ Abashedly, Leo redirected his hand back to his fork. "Right. Sorry," he said. _

_ Tasha stood up from her chair to get some more coffee. "Do you have everything ready?" she asked as she poured more of the drink into her cup._

_ "Yes," Leo said._

_ "Don't forget to tell your grandmother what time they have to be there. You know she's going to be upset with me if they don't get to take pictures with you before the ceremony," she said._

_ "Okay."_

_ Tasha sat down quietly. Instead of returning to her breakfast, she fell into staring at her son._

_ Jason looked up not too long after and saw the tears forming in his wife's eyes. "Oh no," he said._

_ Leo looked up from his plate, alarmed. "What?" Following his father's gaze, he saw his mother wiping off her cheeks. "Aw, Mom."_

_ "What? I can't cry because of you?" his mother asked, drying her palms on her robe. _

_ Leo chuckled. "You can, but – I thought you said it won't be until later."_

_ "Leo Francis Dooley, I will cry whenever I want to," she said firmly._

_ Leo reached out an arm towards his mother to give her a hug. He turned his eyes towards his father to ask for some support, but he found him digging through his plate with moist eyes. "Oh, Dad, not you, too," he said in horror._

_ "Your mother started it," his father said casually._

_ Leo glanced from his father to his mother then to his father again, unsure what to do. When the situation registered to him, he laughed. "Now I'm scared to see what will happen when they hand me my diploma," he commented. _

_ "You'll be too lost in the moment to take notice, son," his father said._

_ His mother sniffled after the surge of emotions had passed. "I still can't believe that you were picked to be a speaker," she said. _

_ "You didn't think I'd get it?" _

_ "No, that's not what I meant. I just mean that having this opportunity is good for you," his mother said. "There are many other kids lined up for this, but you were chosen. It's so exciting. The kids they chose to be principal speakers last year were great." She turned to her husband. "You remember that boy? Chase Davenport?"_

_ Leo frowned; he didn't recognize the name. "Who?" he asked._

_ "Yeah, well, _my_ boy's going to do great this year, too," his father announced confidently after placing his dish on the sink. _

_ Leo smiled at him. His father replied with a nod._

_ "Speaking of doing great things, Leo, you still have to help your father clean up the car before you get ready," his mother said._

_ Leo stood up, finished with his food. After one quick swig of water, he responded, "Okay. I can actually do that now."_

_ "Keys."_

_ Leo caught them successfully after his father tossed it towards him. "Thanks, Pops," he said before dashing out the garage._

_ By the time he had finished what he was asked to do, it was time for him to get ready. He hurried up to his room, texted his grandparents, showered, and then changed into his suit and cap and gown. When he came downstairs, the royal blue material trailing behind him and his tassel bouncing lightly, his parents stopped everything that they were doing and beamed at him breathlessly. His mother cried again, while his father took him into his embrace proudly._

_ After nearly half an hour of travel, the three of them finally reached Mission Creek High's football field where parents, students and the faculty crowded around the field and at the bleachers. Leo took in the sea of predominantly royal blue and yellow with both excitement and apprehension. _

_ His parents left for their seats after sneaking in a family selfie and then wishing him well. It seemed to have been timed well, too; when the vice principal saw him, he quickly dragged him back to the hall by the locker rooms where the rest of graduates were supposed to march from. On their way, the man frantically fired questions after questions at him, wanting to know whether he knew who he was supposed to follow and whether he had his speech ready. He just laughed and told him yes._

_ The senior class clouding the hall was, to say the least, a mess—of laughter, of conversation, and of trying to take as many pictures as possible. Leo smiled as he proceeded towards the front of the line where he was supposed to be. _

_ Not long after, someone slapped a hand on his shoulder from the back. "Leo, my main dude! What's up?" the brunet boy greeted, a hand up._

_ Leo's features lit up when he saw the face of his best friend. Clapping his hand for their handshake, he replied, "Maximus Thorne, how's it going?" _

_ "Mm, I'm burning up. Feels like we're in a furnace. Doesn't help that it smells like football season in here," Max said, sticking his tongue out in disgust for emphasis. He nodded at him. "What about you? You nervous?"_

_ Leo sighed. "Don't remind me."_

_ "Has Kerry seen you yet? She's been looking for you."_

_ "No. She has?"_

_ "Yeah." Max began looking around. "In fact, she was just here a minute ago…"_

_ Leo, like Max, searched the hall, too. He knew the girl wouldn't be very happy with him if she didn't get to say hi before the ceremony began. _

_Past the current of movements around him, Leo picked up on an unusual sight. Standing still towards the opposite wing of the building from him, at the very end corner, was a girl. Because of the relative darkness enveloping her, he couldn't see much of her features. All he could tell was that she was lean and had long, dark hair. She was also wearing some type of dark suit. What disturbed him the most was what she seemed to be doing. _

_She was staring back at him._

_"What."_

_Leo glanced back at Max, his brows wrinkled. "Do you—" However, before he could finish his question, the girl ran out and vanished out of sight in a speed that he had only read from comic books._

_"Do I what?" Max asked, looking at the direction his best friend was staring at with a frown._

_Leo blinked, and for a second he started to reconsider how the heat from the afternoon was affecting him. He shook his head as he faced the exit again. "Okay, I must need some water or something," he muttered._

_"You want me to run back to the vending machine back there to get you one?" Max asked anxiously._

_"Okay, seniors. Two minutes!" the vice principal announced happily as he came in. "Are you guys ready?"_

_A loud, almost unanimous hooting responded. _

_"Alright! Heard you loud and clear! Everyone in line!" the vice principal instructed before walking to the front of the queue. _

_"Gotta go back to my spot," Max told Leo. "See ya after, man."_

_"See you," Leo said with a smile._

_As Max walked back, he cupped his palms around his mouth before yelling, "All my seniors, let me hear you scream! One-five, baby, one-five!"_

_"One-five, baby, one-five!"_

_Leo couldn't help but feel excited all over again as he heard his fellow classmates stomp and shout all around him. The loud, rhythmic noise pounded at the walls, reverberating all throughout and perhaps even towards the spectators outside waiting to see them. A grin began to come to his features as he thought of the bright future ahead of him, immediately as they step out of these halls and then later on when he leaves for the new chapter in his life. _

_However, the expression was cut short as a gloomy feeling loomed within his chest. _

_It didn't help when he felt the earth beneath him shake considerably. _

_"That's not us, is it?" Leo heard a girl behind him ask worriedly as the graduates' shouting slowly died down._

_In response, the ground shook more violently, knocking almost everybody out of balance._

_"Earthquake!" the vice principal yelled. "Everybody, out on the field!"_

_What was once filled with enthusiastic shouting was now filled with frightened screaming as the large number of children sprinted outside to safety. Leo was halfway out when he stopped and turned around, seeking for his best friend among the jumble of bodies speeding past him. "Max! Max!" he yelled, his eyes trained to the chaos inside the building that was close to collapsing. _

_Somebody grabbed him by the arm then ran out with him to the football field. "What are you doing?" the vice principal asked him angrily after they reached a relatively clear area. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"_

_"Max. He's still in there," he told him._

_The vice principal shook his head but then sprinted back to make sure that all had gotten out._

_Crash after crash rang around Leo that he didn't know where to turn to first. All he was aware of was the fear and the devastation all around him, each second feeling like an hour. He dodged the mass of people running in whichever direction and debris raining down on them as he made his way towards the section where his parents had gone to. _

_His heart sank when he saw that it, too, had caved in. _

_"No—Mom! Dad!"_

_Leo pushed one of the gates open to make his way towards the ruins. Despite the earthquake having ended, panic still prevailed all around him, but his mind was too focused on locating his family. He called out to them, over and over, but he didn't get any answers. As he dug past the shambles, he hoped feverishly that they had both escaped and that they were somewhere safe. _

_He stopped a while later, heaving his breaths after spending all of his energy. _

_He heard a gasp somewhere close. Turning towards it, he saw his father, heavily injured. "Dad!" he said as he hurried towards him. Seeing the extent of the wounds, Leo unzipped his gown and folded it into a semblance of a square before pressing it down where his father bled. While he kneeled down beside him, he looked at his father, his hand shaking as he listened to him groan in pain. "Dad, please. Please." He held his hand, and his father squeezed it tightly. "Please, be alright."_

_His father tried to speak, but each syllable came as soft hiccups._

_Slowly, Leo felt his father's grasp loosen, and this gave rise to panic. _

_Sensing the presence of someone nearby, he looked up to ask for help. The sight that met him came as a slight surprise, but he was too determined to save his father's life to mind it. "Please," he asked the three teenagers that gazed down at him coldly. "Please, help my dad."_

_The two boys and the girl—who he now recognized as the one he saw earlier—wordlessly watched his misery. They didn't move. They only waited._

_Leo opened his mouth to plead again, but he felt his father's hand fall back to the ground and his breathing stop. "No, no, Dad, no," he said. "No, Dad, please." He took off his hand from his gown, the royal blue now soaked in crimson, to tap his father's cheeks in a vain hope to waken him back to consciousness. _

_He cringed in agony when a high-pitched screeching sound struck him. He quickly placed his hands on his ears but even that did not drown it out. _

_As he struggled, he was rendered unable to do anything but watch, watch as the three teenagers in jet black suits walked away, uncaringly leaving behind the aftermath of a great disaster._

"Hey. Kid. Wake up. Come on. Wake up."

Leo awakened to the sensation of someone shaking him by the shoulder and then pulling him up to a sitting position. Suddenly, the humid and disconsolate California afternoon was gone and was replaced with a breezy, dark evening in some place he didn't know. The wide open football field had vanished, too. Instead, he was surrounded with concrete, the only preview to the world outside being a lone window some distance above and the opened door leading to what seemed like a corridor inside a facility.

He nearly screamed in pain after trying to rub his stinging eyes with his left hand.

The man who helped him up held a picture in front of him. "Who are they? Do you know who they are?"

Leo grimaced heavily as he nursed his hurting wrist towards him. He didn't reply but instead continued to wonder where everybody had gone and where he was.

The man urgently tapped him on the knee with the picture. "Leo. Focus. Their names. What is it?" he demanded.

Leo pried his eyes open only so that the man would leave him alone. He stared at the picture and tried his best to see if he knew them. The photograph was of a family: a man who looked like he was in his early 40's, and three teenaged children—two boys, one girl. The man in the picture and who seemed to be the oldest of the three had very dark hair. The other boy had a dark brown hair, almost similar to what the man that had woken him up had. The girl had a lighter chestnut hue highlight on hers.

He almost didn't identify the three teenagers because of the smiles on their faces, but memory reminded him of them, walking away in their dark suits after he begged them for help.

"Do you know who they are?" he was asked again.

Leo lifted his eyes up toward him. He shook his head.

He didn't know who they were.

A smirk slowly pulled at the man's mouth, although why Leo didn't know. "Get a good night's rest," the man said. "We're going to do another test and some more simulations tomorrow." He stood up, the picture still in hand, and then left the room.

Leo observed in confusion as the door vanished after it closed. Questions multiplied at a worrisome rate in his head, and no answer seemed to be in sight. He still didn't know what happened. He also didn't know where his father was. Was it all just a dream? Were his parents safe? Did they know where he was?

He wondered about many things as he sat there in silence, now wide awake.

Of all the puzzles that piled on him, what caught his attention the most was that family in the picture because somehow, he felt as if he knew them.

* * *

_to be continued._


	14. Fourteen

_Fourteen. _

Douglas sat back on his swivel chair with a smile. As he kept his eyes on the nine smaller screens surrounding the main control panel, particularly to the one that showed his step-nephew's brain activity being transmitted to his newest creations' chips, he felt deep satisfaction in seeing his plans come closer to full fruition. The program was working very well. Though he may not be able to interpret these data as well as the three could, he was confident that the goal to connect all four children was successful. It seemed, too, that the degradation was right on schedule. From the results in front of him, he could see that the boy's thinking was gradually sliding towards dependence on his programming via the chip.

He looked back at the photograph that he had brought with him in the simulation room haphazardly sitting at the edge of the panel, just above the trash can. The smile on his face grew considerably as he remembered Leo denying knowledge of who they were—a clear evidence that his memory was beginning to be affected greatly, too.

He forgot who Donald, Adam, Bree and Chase Davenport were.

Given, this wouldn't be long lasting. His brain would probably spring back in a few hours– for the most part, at least. He would be able to think his own thoughts, move how he wanted to move. He probably would even remember the simulation and how he forgot his own family. He wouldn't come back whole, though; the chip always took fragments of him after every simulation.

Admittedly, it made Douglas somewhat nervous when he walked in on the kid talking to a non-existent person some time ago. He expected him to have some hallucinations after the first simulation as a side effect of everything, but he wondered about the likelihood of the events having happened in reverse. What if the hallucination came _before_ the simulation? It indicated a few things, none of them worrisome, save for the one possibility that the kid's system began adapting to the chip much faster, which could, in the long run, throw the whole project off balance, maybe even derail it.

But the chances of that happening were very slim. Plus, even if it did happen, he still had the better control of all.

He did a quick check of everything, making sure they were running accordingly, before leaving his seat to turn in for the night. He crossed the lab but stopped when he reached the capsules where Darwin, Echo and Fielder were resting.

He approached them quietly, slowly. Even through unconsciousness, the three of them looked indestructible. As he gazed at them, he found them all the more acceptable. They were creations that were his and could not be taken away. "If he ever gets in your heads, let me know," he said broodingly. "We can do something about that."

None of them responded.

Douglas made a few steps backwards before swiveling on his feet, the whirring of countless machines resonating in his wake.

* * *

_to be continued._


	15. Fifteen

_Much thanks to AlienGhostWizard14, LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Mickey12Boo, Jillie chan, and AllAmericanSlurp for the reviews! They're very much appreciated._

_It was suggested to me last chapter that I do a short recap of what's been happening since the story's been going on for a while now. Because it will get pretty long, that will not be included in this note, BUT if you head on over to my profile page, underneath the "Catch and Release" header, you'll find a link to an image that has the timeline of the story. It has short summaries of events and their progression, starting from the twenty-second chapter of "Search and Destroy", along with the chapter numbers._

_You'll notice that the last two blocks are covered, and that's because the events in those will be kept secret for now. ;)_

_Please enjoy this chapter. One of my personal favorites. _

* * *

_Fifteen._

Tasha came down to a quiet atmosphere in the lab. She could tell that more work was being poured into their search. By the sofa, her husband preoccupied himself with his tablet, clicking on the screen then examining the results he was getting with much concentration. Over by the mission specialist desk, she saw Chase in deep thought, his expression almost mimicking his father's perfectly, and speaking to Torrance about something while Torrance worked at the mission specialist desk as she listened intently. From their demeanor, Tasha could read that the two teens had finally settled their differences and had teamed up to come up with a solution, and that made her happy.

She proceeded to her husband with the freshly brewed cup of coffee in her hand. She sat next to him with a smile, and then placed the drink on the table in front of him. "I thought you could use some energy boost," she told him when he looked up at her, mildly surprised by her presence.

He smiled back. He placed his tablet down, and then he picked up his wife's offer gratefully. "Thanks, babe," he said before carefully taking a sip.

She patted him on the knee as a response. "So how's everything going?" she asked.

Donald sighed in exhaustion and frustration. "All are moving pretty much at the same pace," he answered. "We tried tracking down the worm again, but it's harder this time. We don't want to risk alerting Douglas, so we had to resort to retracing, but it always gets lost whenever we get close to the islands. It's also taking a lot of time. Torrance and Chase are right there, trying to analyze what he saw in the simulation. Unfortunately, they have nothing so far." He sat up but bended forward, burying his eyes in his palms as he tried to rub the tiredness out of them. "This would be going much faster if he had told us where he is."

Tasha regarded him sympathetically.

Donald lifted his eyes up at her. "I just want to find him," he said. "We need to get him out of there. Wherever he is, he's not safe there with Douglas. I know my brother. He's—he's not capable of kindness, especially when he's got a goal in mind."

"Don't worry. You'll find him," Tasha said encouragingly.

"How do you know that?" he asked gently, and it was evident in his eyes that he was near to losing all hope.

Seeing this, she replied, "Because I believe that all of you are capable of it." She chuckled when her husband's brows wrinkle questioningly. "Donald, just in this room alone, right at this moment, exist three of the brightest people I know. Upstairs are the strongest and the fastest kids on the planet. That's enough evidence for me to have confidence in you guys pulling this off." She nodded, very much assured. "Leo's coming home."

Donald smiled at his wife and accepted the warmth and strength she offered.

She glanced at her younger son and the girl before commenting, "The environment's much better, huh?"

Donald grinned, knowing what she meant. "Yeah. Definitely. They're actually getting things accomplished when they're not working against each other," he said. He then frowned. "Did you tell her anything?"

"No. More than likely, it's just because our little diplomat settled the difference between them the best way he knew how," Tasha smiled knowingly in reference to Chase.

"Mm," Donald agreed as he took another sip of coffee.

"I'm actually happy that they're friendlier towards each other," Tasha commented. "I've gotten a chance to talk to Torrance, and she sounds like she knows how to care about people, even if she doesn't want to admit it. She's very smart, too, obviously. Very pretty."

Donald smirked then narrowed his eyes as he heard her charged implications. "Tasha, you're not going to Mom your way into this, are you?" he asked.

Tasha feigned cluelessness. "'Mom-ing my way into this'? What do you mean?" she asked.

Donald laughed but not too loud so as not to call the attention of the subjects of their discussion. "You're trying to play matchmaker," he stated bluntly.

Tasha grinned. "Oh, I don't know what you're talking about, Donald. I'm obviously not doing anything. They're just happening without anyone pushing them together," she said.

Donald subtly observed the two from afar for a few seconds in consideration of what she said. Afterwards, he granted, "You're right."

"Mm."

He thought over what he noted from the two. He clicked his tongue. "Oh, now you're getting me into it, too," he said, trying to hold a laugh as he distracted himself with the work on his tablet.

"I'm not getting you into anything. You're just seeing what I'm seeing," Tasha said. A while later, she asked, "Hey. Don't they remind you of a couple we know? Their first date went well, but they started to really like each other when they worked together on that assignment?"

Donald smirked as he tapped on a result. "You mean that very, very, very handsome man who married that very beautiful woman?"

"Just one 'very'?" she asked with a grin.

"Very, _very_ beautiful woman," Donald corrected himself.

Tasha chuckled. "Yeah, I'm talking about them," she said, "with the four teenaged kids—three with superhero abilities and one who's a hacker in training. All inherently troublemakers, but who care about other people and each other so much."

Donald smiled. "Our kids _are_ troublemakers," he said.

"Yeah. But they're good people," Tasha said. The bright expression on her face dimmed when she thought about her son. "Sometimes they even go to extremes to prove how much they care," she added sadly.

Donald looked at her. This time, he was the one to offer her consolation by taking hold of her hand and giving it a squeeze.

Tasha looked at her husband. "You know, I never did ask you how you feel about all of this," she prompted.

Donald pondered over it. "I just want it to be over with. Maybe after Leo comes back we can start all over," he said.

Tasha nodded though she was far from satisfied, especially with the subtle but present hesitation she was hearing from her husband's tone. "Do you remember on our wedding day, and I asked you if you liked the cakes I chose and you just said yes even if you didn't and had some more things to say about it?" she began tactfully. When she read from her husband's features that he understood, she said, "That 'maybe' in what you said sounded just like that 'yes.' There's still something you're not telling me."

A smirk tugged at Donald's lips. He guessed three years was too short of a time to earn that skill of successfully concealing his negative emotions when necessary. He asked honestly, both to her and to himself, "How could he do this? Why didn't he ask us for help as soon as he found out? Is it because he didn't think we could help?" He paused as everything sank in and as pent up thoughts rise from the faraway place he had long hidden them in.

At that moment, he remembered the night after Adam got hit by that car, after, in his imperfect thinking, he briefly blamed his stepson for what happened. He also recalled when Torrance told them about the inadequacy his youngest child felt. "I hope it's not because he thought we wouldn't help him," he added.

"I don't know what that boy was thinking, but I'm sure he never thought you wouldn't help."

Picking it up from the delivery of her words, he asked, "Are you mad at him, too?"

"Very," Tasha answered calmly but seriously. She shook her head in vehemence. "I know he has his reasons, but he's still put us through the wringer these past few months. He could have at least given us a clue what was happening."

"Especially you."

"Especially me," Tasha agreed. "He's going to have a lot of explaining to do when he comes back, but right now I have to focus on helping everybody as much as I can. I might not be happy with him, but I still want him here with us."

"I agree," Donald said. He gave his wife's hand another squeeze before picking up his tablet again to continue what he was working on. He smiled when something came to him. "By the way, Chase said that the simulation where he talked to Leo took place in your old house," he said.

"Oh, did it? How'd he know?"

"He actually didn't. At first, at least. But when he described everything to us earlier, it sounded like the old house you and Leo used to live in before you moved to that apartment," Donald said.

"Leo still remembered that house?" Tasha thought aloud. "He was seven when we left it."

"Yeah, apparently he remembered. Chase said he also saw pictures of your family, including ones with you and Jason."

Tasha laughed softly when she remembered that wall in their old house where numerous family portraits crowded. "Okay, yeah. I guess he did," she said.

Donald sat up. "Chase also told us about a note that Leo saw pinned on the fridge. We've been trying to figure out what it means since yesterday. He said it was pinned under a picture of a younger you and Jason at the beach. Do you remember any note at all by any chance?"

Tasha's features slightly wrinkled. "I don't know. Depends on what the note said, but—Jason and I never had any pictures of us being on the beach. He hates going there," she said. "The only time we ever went since we got married was when we took Leo when he was four. Even then, he stayed far away."

Donald frowned. "Chase," he called to his son. "Tasha said she and Jason don't have any pictures of being on the beach. Are you sure that that's what you saw?"

Chase thought back on it. Taking a deep breath to combat his exhaustion, he said, "Yes. I'm pretty sure it was him. It was the same person I saw sitting with Tasha and Leo at the park. He was in many other pictures."

"What did the note say?" Tasha asked. She stood up from her seat then walked over to where he was, her husband following behind her.

"'One plus one. This is real,'" Chase responded. He leaned back on his chair then ran a hand down his face. He groaned. "I've been trying to figure out what it means, Mr. Davenport, but I'm coming up with nothing."

Donald turned towards the girl. "Torrance, what about you?"

Torrance shook her head. "It's possible that it's a code, but whatever it means only Leo Dooley can understand," she said. "I tried everything I can think of, but all of these only lead me to dead ends. 'One plus one' and Two are too vague details."

"Code? Wha—Do you think it's something that Douglas could have put in there?" Tasha asked in alarm.

"It doesn't seem to be the case," Chase said. "Leo was reserved, and he didn't even want to really address me at first, but when he saw that note his face kind of lit up, and then he started talking to me."

"So the second part of the note tells him that you're really there, and he believed it," Donald observed. "If that's the case, then he must trust whoever wrote it."

Chase nodded. "And whoever wrote it must know what that math problem meant," he said.

Her stepson's hypothesis rang through Tasha's mind, and it shook out a past memory. "Jason always quizzed Leo with math equations," she stated when she realized it. She looked at Torrance, Chase then Donald, all of whom were giving her puzzled stares. "When he started school, Leo was not very good at math, so Jason made up this game. He would give him simple problems to solve out of the blue, and Leo was supposed to answer them. They played it until Leo got much better."

"Wait. Was there anyone else in the simulation with you?" Donald asked Chase.

"No. It was just the two of us there," Chase answered.

Torrance processed the information and soon came up with something. "Two," she said. She looked at the family. "'One plus one. This is real.' Two," she repeated. "The writer of that note told Leo that there were two people in the room at that moment and that everything happening is real."

Donald shook his head when he couldn't make sense of what they were discovering. "Okay, Leo _must've_ said something about that," he said.

"He didn't. We just talked. I told him about us trying to locate him, he asked me about Torrance, told me about the chip and his situation," Chase said regretfully. "We argued."

"You argued?"

"I got upset with him because he wasn't cooperating," Chase explained sheepishly. "Then, he asked me to tell everybody that he's sorry."

"What exactly did he say?" Donald asked.

"Um," he weakly threw a hand up as he hitched a shoulder, "he said he's sorry that he did all of this to us and that what he did was wrong. He said he deserves everything that's happening to him. Then he said he wouldn't let us suffer for him and that he's not going to watch it happen because…" he glanced empathetically at his mother, "because he said it's happened before. Then, he said he was glad he was able to talk to me again, and then he thanked me."

Donald knew that there was something his son left out in his account of the conversation, but he trusted that he did so out of discretion, perhaps he didn't want to say it because he didn't want to hurt Tasha, so he didn't press for it. Instead, he just said, "Is that it?"

"Yeah. He just asked me again to apologize to everyone and to tell you guys he loves us," Chase said. Then, his brows wrinkled when he remembered something. "Oh. Oh, yeah. He told me, too, to tell his Anna that Guillermo said hi?" He turned his sights at Torrance. "I told you about that, right?"

"His Anna?" Donald repeated. "Who's Anna?"

"Anna and Guillermo – that sounds like the characters from Morning Light," Tasha commented.

"Morning Light?"

"It's a Spanish soap opera that we used to watch," Tasha answered her husband. "Anna is Guillermo's love interest."

"So, he was asking me to tell Kerry he said hi?" Chase asked.

"Maybe," Tasha replied. "I can't believe he still remembers that show. I've actually forgotten all about it. The last episode we saw together was the one that played before the wedding."

"Actually, he and I watched an episode while we were in New York, Tasha Davenport," Torrance said. "I had to catch him up, because he said he had missed a lot. I had to tell him what happened with Laurence Swanson and Anna Henry's wedding, and I also told him what had really come of Guillermo Del…" She frowned when a thought occurred to her. She got up from her seat then began typing something at the desk.

Donald and Tasha exchanged worried glances. "Torrance? What happened?" Donald asked to her.

"Your brother told you where he is, Chase Davenport," Torrance said as she clicked on something.

"What?" Chase asked.

"The message he asked you to relay is not for Kerry Perry; it was for me. It's a clue," she said. A few seconds later, the desk beeped with the results. She stared at it, shock, joy and relief flooding to her all at once. She then pulled the image on the desk up to the screen behind her. It showed a rendition of scattered islands resting on a water-like grid, an urgent red box blinking on a very specific dot off the clusters of land. "We found him. He's in an isolated island off the Bahamas."

Donald looked at the results, verified it, and then said, "I'll go get Adam and Bree." He gave his wife's hand a reassuring squeeze before hurrying to the elevators.

Meanwhile, the three people he left were still reeling from their shock. For Torrance, it was a great reprieve. The results evidenced that the greatest hindrance of uncertainty had been lifted from them, and now they were much closer to gaining back the person that was taken away from them.

For Chase, the result provided hope and anticipation. He was going to see his brother again, and this time they wouldn't be limited by time and by computer programs. They could speak freely, and he could ask him questions and settle many things with him. Above all, he could tell him that he lied, that, even if it may take some time, he was willing to forgive him.

For Tasha, the result meant all of these. With a smile, the kind that Chase hadn't seen in her face for a terribly long time, she said, "He's coming home. He's really coming home."

* * *

_to be continued._


	16. Sixteen

_Huge thanks to LabGirl2001, AlienGhostWizard14, Glee Clue Rock 1251, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Mickey12Boo, and AllAmericanSlurp for the reviews last chapter! I still owe a number of you replies to your comments, which should hopefully be done sometime this weekend. :)_

_This chapter is definitely the darkest in this story, if not out of the whole trilogy. It deals with themes of deep depression and suicide, and there are a few spots where it would get pretty graphic. If these are something that could trigger something in you, please feel free to skip it or leave a comment to ask for a short summary. _

_Again, please proceed with caution._

* * *

_Sixteen._

Leo heaved a breath and then threw up again. When his body had expelled all of the bile, which was not as much now as when he first began, he coughed, and then took in a shaky breath as he continued sobbing.

He was growing very, very weak. He didn't even know how he had managed to crawl towards that hole on the floor before he started vomiting. He couldn't remember when it started. All he knew was that his knees and his right hand were throbbing because he had been on them for too long. His right forearm was moist after he had used it for wiping his mouth so many times. He couldn't use his hand to do it because somewhere within the first of these darkest hours, his nose began bleeding again.

That was all he could taste and smell, the vomit that dried around his lips, that clung to his throat and teeth, and the blood that had caked around his nose.

He could just imagine how he looked. Filthy clothes, with all of those things smeared around his face. Tears creating trails on his cheeks, although his health couldn't seem to afford them anymore. That bandage around his wrist, mangy for not having been changed for days.

Pathetic. He just looked so pathetic.

The worst part was how withered and dead he felt inside. He couldn't tell time anymore. Whereas before, he could guess whether it was morning or if it was afternoon, now he couldn't. It was light outside, that was what he knew when he woke up, and he felt so stupid because he couldn't even make the right observations and put the pieces together. His brain always blanked out, and it wouldn't work with him no matter how much he forced it to.

His ability to remember terrified him. It was almost non-existent now. He would get glimpses of certain events, and he wouldn't know when it happened. He didn't know if some of them _really_ happened. He didn't know if Douglas had come back for another test, or if his family really did come there to visit him before leaving him. He couldn't recall when Darwin, Echo and Fielder came into the room with him. It was all jumbled, the dreams and realities and simulations. He couldn't tell apart the truths from the lies because his mind bought into both of them.

What scared him the most, though, was that he didn't even remember his own family. He recalled Douglas waking him up from a simulation and asking him to identify his own stepfather and his older siblings, and he said he didn't know who they were—and he didn't. His brain had blocked any remembrance of them, and to him, at that time, they were strangers, people who he had only seen in a preprogrammed dream where they refused to help him. It horrified him, because it only showed that Douglas did have the ability to take everything away from him. It wouldn't be long now until the inventor could use him however he wanted to, because he had shown him at that instance that he was only a malleable piece who only existed to be used.

Douglas and Jessi were right. He couldn't do anything right to save his life. His family and his friend would have figured out how to get themselves out of this by now, but not him. A chip had defeated him because he wasn't careful or smart or powerful like the people he loved. He was dumb and reckless and weak.

He was worthless and a waste.

Another sickening sensation expanded in his gut. Leo took a breath before it came. Then, once again, he threw up.

"Leo, don't cry," Jason said empathetically as intense sobbing racked his son's body afterwards.

Leo's head hung low after he sat down. "I'm tired, Dad."

"I know. I know you are, but – just wait a little bit more, okay? Your family's going to come for you soon," Jason assured him. He walked over to him then said, "You figured out where you are, and you told Chase about it. They're probably getting ready by now."

Leo shook his head very weakly, because it was only what his strength could allow him. "No," he said, his voice faltering to a whisper because of how sore his throat was. "They shouldn't come."

Jason sighed. "Leo..."

Leo slowly lifted his eyes up to Darwin, Echo and Fielder. He was met with the sight of them staring vapidly ahead, like skilled, trained soldiers who had no emotions and so wouldn't hold back. He wanted to go home, but he knew that with them he couldn't. His family could get killed because of him, because of that stupid chip that had forever connected him to the three and had required them to shield him away from everyone else.

Leo began to move back to where he usually slept but stopped after a few paces. He glanced around the room with a sniffle and decided that he didn't want to wake up to this again. He was sick of it—of being in pain, of feeling hopeless, of being alone—but he knew that he would never get out of this cage, of this four-sided casket he was in. The chances of him opening his eyes and being with his family didn't exist. He would be fooling himself if he believed that. He was not even sure if he would wake up here or in a simulation again. And what if, if he did come to inside a simulation, he never gets out anymore? Douglas told him that that was what was going to happen. What if this would be the last time he would be in the real world?

Turning to his side to sit down, he wiped his face dry, causing the tears to mingle with blood.

He was tired, and he wanted to go to sleep but this time, he didn't want to wake up anymore.

Jason's brows wrinkled as he watched his son look attentively around the room. "What are you looking for?" he asked, worried by the things Leo was setting his eyes on.

Leo saw that he didn't have many options. The pipes were too high. The edges of the opening on the floor where he had thrown up weren't sharp enough. It came to him that Douglas probably figured out what he would want to do ahead of time, and so he put him in a place where there would be nothing he could use.

However, he didn't give up. It was then that he looked down on his left wrist. It was still sore, so the incision was probably still fresh. All he had to do was dig his nails through it, and it would do the job.

So, he began pulling on the gauze to loosen the wrap. "Please, please, come on. Come on, come off, please," he muttered as he manically tugged on the bandage. It wouldn't detach. It was wound tight, and his hand trembling too much from just thinking of the pain he would be in if he did succeed made it all the more impossible.

Pathetic. He was a coward and pathetic.

Leo pulled and scratched at it harder, but the stabbing sensation that resulted overwhelmed him to the point of screaming and stopping. Realizing that he was too weak to carry it out, he allowed his hands to gradually fall on either side of him. His head hung lower as he began crying again.

Jason exhaled a breath. "Leo—"

"I just want to die," Leo wept quietly.

"You're just tired," his father told him, his tone that of being heartbroken. "Why don't you lie back down? I'll stay with you until you fall asleep."

Leo looked around the room again and desperately wished for a way out. He didn't want this anymore. He didn't want to go to sleep and wake up to this room and testing and vomiting and bleeding. There was no more light in his life. There was nothing good to look forward to. He would be lying to himself to even think that his family would be there. They were not going to come for him, because they shouldn't.

His sobs came to a halt when he caught sight of Darwin, Echo and Fielder, especially Darwin. The agony slowly lifted from his face when he remembered what the older boy had the ability to do. Douglas said the chip connected them to him, and Leo knew that now. He also knew that it connected him to them, so they must know. Darwin must know what he needed him to do. He gazed at him intently and focused on his plea, hoping that Darwin would understand it.

There were no movements at first.

Then, Darwin started turning his head towards him.

Jason looked at Darwin then Leo when the older boy started to take his position in front of his son. "Son, what…What are you doing?" he asked.

Leo said nothing as he watched Darwin's eyes start to glow blue, the laser behind it gaining energy.

Out of his periphery, he noticed Echo and Fielder regarding Darwin with confusion. From their expressions, he could tell that they didn't know why their brother had suddenly turned against the person they were supposed to protect. He was going to hurt the person they cared about, and he didn't look like he had any intentions of stopping.

When they made a move to prevent Darwin from what he was about to do, Leo turned to them and told them firmly, "Stay where you are."

Echo and Fielder looked at him at first, surprised. Then, as the command registered to them, the frown on their faces lifted, only to be replaced by those blank and coldly obedient expressions while they stood still in their places.

Leo turned his attention back to Darwin, whose eyes glowed much bluer.

Jason took a step towards him. "Don't do this."

"It'll be okay," Leo said calmly, gazing longingly at the energy in the lasers that he knew was near to reaching its fullest point. He sniffled while contemplating where to tell Darwin to aim. "Just one shot, and it will all be over. I don't have to worry anymore."

"If you let this happen—"

"If I let this happen, all the problems will be gone. I can go to sleep, and I don't have to wake up," Leo said, not taking his eyes off Darwin.

Jason nervously looked back and forth between both boys. "Don't."

Leo didn't listen to him. He watched as Darwin concentrated his eyes just above his eyebrows, right on his forehead. He waited for him patiently.

"Just…"

It was only a matter of seconds now, Leo thought. The lasers neared its peak. He could tell from the angry neon blue blazing in Darwin's eyes.

"Son."

It would probably be painful at first, but it would be quick. He may not even remember how it felt like after everything dissolved into darkness.

"Listen to me."

_No, _Leo thought. He was shaking, his nerves suffering from a current of fear rushing through him as he anticipated and imagined how everything would look like. It would be a mess, but at least it would be over. A great sense of peace overcame him, and even a measure of happiness, when he thought of Douglas coming in later and finding a dead body in the room instead of the pawn he needed him to be.

It was consoling, the image of defeat on the inventor's face.

"Leo."

Leo closed his eyes to accustom himself to the darkness. They lightly watered from under his eyelids.

He hoped they would at least bury him in a nice place.

"Leo."

Just a few more seconds. Leo counted backwards to prevent himself from drawing back. _Seven, six, five, four, three…_

"Leo, _stop it_."

Leo's eyes flew open when he heard a different but familiar voice. He turned his head to the side and felt shame wash over him as he saw the person walk around to face him.

"What is wrong with you?" Donald asked him angrily, his stern expression different from his father's pleading one. "What do you think you're doing trying to end everything like this?"

Leo looked pleadingly at Darwin, who appeared to be at a standstill and was only two seconds away from firing. He wanted him to do it, he desperately wanted him to, but the sudden appearance of his stepfather seemed to have broken the connection they had. Now Darwin was left frozen in place, and he was left staring at his failure.

"Chase had told you that we're doing everything we can to find you. All we ask is that you wait a little bit longer. Can't you do that?" his stepfather asked him.

He bended forward, head bowing down as tears of anger and disappointment seized him. He was so tired, but the rest he wanted had been snatched away from him. The future that was filled with hope for a new life dimmed back down to that hopeless one again, where he would degrade physically and mentally, where his life would soon be overtaken by another person and would be lived as he saw fit. "Why would you do that?" he cried quietly, his voice breaking. "That was mine. It would have been the best for everybody."

"What right do you have to decide what's best for your mother, for me, for your siblings?" Donald asked heatedly. "What's best for us is _our_ choice. All of this happened because you decided to take that away from us! You decided to leave us six months ago because you thought it would keep us safe, without even thinking how it would hurt us. You decided to go against Douglas by yourself, without even seeing how it would get you and Torrance in trouble, how it could backfire and result in you being treated like…like _this_." The anger he regarded him with slowly melted into pity as he beheld the sorry state Leo was in. He sighed. "And now, you've decided you want to die, because you think it's the best for everybody, without even realizing how hard it will be for us to see that for all the hard work we've put into finding you, the only reward we would get is to have to bury you again for the second time."

Leo wiped his tears with the back of his hands as his anger dissipated, only to be replaced with a tremendous regret over the things he had done against his family.

Donald walked over to him and then kneeled down in front him. Warmly, he said, "What's best for us – what's _always_ been the best for us – is for you to be with us. Do you understand?"

Leo nodded, keeping his eyes on the floor out of embarrassment. "Yes," he replied quietly. "Yes, Dad, I understand."

Donald smiled a small smile at him.

Leo quivered as he exhausted the last of his tears. As he did, he felt arms wrap around him, taking him into a kind embrace. Glancing up, he saw that it was Echo, regarding him with sympathy for his pain and apology for not being able to jump in to save him earlier. He was inclined to move away from her, especially as Fielder stood behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, but he decided against it. They were there to offer him what he needed, and he had no reason to decline it. So, instead, he leaned towards her hug, towards someone who reminded him of Bree in so many ways.

It was then that he earned the courage to look up at his stepfather, but like with his father in so many instances, he had vanished, too. Instead, it was only Darwin who was left standing there. The charged, neon blue glow in his eyes were diminishing into nothing at that moment, and the look of fear after realizing what he had almost done clouded his features. He gazed at his siblings, as if asking them to forgive him, and then his gaze rested on Leo.

While staring back at him, something occurred to Leo. Upon his command, Darwin almost shot at him. With only a few words, he caused Echo and Fielder to do exactly what he told them to do. Even when inciting them to do something against their wishes, they did what he asked.

He had just controlled them, all three of them, without even realizing it.

Leo looked down at his wrist in fear, coming to fully understand then the darkness and horror that that chip within him could bring about if he allowed himself to fall under Douglas' control.

* * *

_to be continued._


	17. Seventeen

_Thank you to LabGirl2001, Glee Clue Rock 1251, Lady Cougar-Trombone, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, and Jillie chan for braving last chapter and leaving reviews!_

* * *

_Seventeen._

Much activity filled the lab as Adam, Bree and Chase reached the final stages of preparing for the rescue mission. As the three gathered together the equipment they needed to take with them, Torrance continued to access as many files as she could from the rogue inventor's side using the mission specialist desk to ensure the success of their plans. Meanwhile, Donald, using the cyber desk, buried himself in the work of checking the means of transportation that would take his children to the site to avoid getting consumed by the apprehension he felt with the half-blind move they were about to make.

After Chase emerged from the back room, Torrance pulled a blueprint of a sizeable facility up on the screen behind her for the team of three to see. "I was able to find this," she said. "I am not sure how reliable it is, but at the very least it should give us an idea of how to maneuver around it once the three of you step inside."

"What is it?" Adam asked as he frowned at it.

"Outline of the building where Douglas Davenport keeps Leo Dooley in," Torrance responded. Turning towards it, she said, gesturing on different areas, "It is not as big as the facility in Virginia, but it does have multiple rooms and a few dead ends, like this one on the south wing and this other one on the west wing." She clicked on a button, and the image zoomed in to a smaller room near the middle of the image. "This appears to be the control room."

Bree narrowed her eyes at the three cylinders drawn on the grid. "Are those capsules?" she asked.

Torrance nodded somberly after glancing at it. "It appears so," she answered.

Bree nodded as she took a deep breath then released it, at that moment feeling, too, a degree of nervousness as she thought about the three obstacles they would have to overcome. "You said you weren't sure how reliable this is?" she asked.

"It was one of the files that were easier to access," Torrance said.

"So you're thinking this may be a trap?"

"We cannot exclude that possibility. I did my best to remain undetected as possible, but with what Leo told Chase Davenport regarding Douglas Davenport's plan, taking things with caution is definitely the best approach," Torrance said. She added, "Still, it is also likely that this blueprint is just outdated and so remained less guarded than the other files."

"What about those three other bionic kids?" Chase asked. "Did we get any more information about them?"

Torrance typed in a command on the desk, and soon it cued a list containing three major headings to appear, with three items under each. She regarded the three teens in front of her with a shadow of worry. "As mentioned, caution is the best approach," she said.

Adam, Bree and Chase focused on the screen to read the list. Chase's brows wrinkled further when he read the very first heading. "Subject D… That must be the Darwin Leo talked about," he said.

"Darwin?" Bree repeated.

"Darwin, Echo and Fielder. Those are their names," Chase said.

"'Echolocation'," Adam read aloud with a frown. He turned towards his younger siblings. "What is that?"

Chase looked back on the screen to find the word. After seeing it under Echo's list, the thoughtful expression on his face cleared to give way to the inkling of dread that had burst somewhere within him. "That means wherever we go, she'll be able to find us," he said, eyeing the two abilities, super speed and supersonic generation, preceding it. He looked at his brother then added, "It means hiding is not an option."

Adam nodded. "So no hiding and cover my ears if she starts screaming. Got it," he noted half-seriously, half-jokingly to diffuse the tension building inside him.

"Isn't the list incomplete?" Bree asked Torrance. "The first time we looked at the plan for this project, you said that besides super speed, there are three others that wasn't included. There are only three here."

"Regrettably, these are the only ones I was able to access," Torrance said. "You will need to discover the last one when you meet her."

Bree breathed out, very much hoping that the ability wouldn't be something too impossible to overcome. "Okay," she said.

Torrance gave her a small but tremendously sincere smile to encourage her. "You can do this, Bree Davenport," she told her. "You are able."

Bree stared at her for a moment, doubtful of what she had said. Then, not long after, she returned the smile appreciatively.

"Okay, it's ready," Donald said, walking away from the cyber desk to head towards his children. "The powerboat is waiting for you three at Miami Beach Marina. You still remember the slip where it is, Chase?"

Chase nodded. "Yes."

"Okay, good. Now it should be equipped with what you'll need for the travel. Torrance and I will give you directions on where to head towards," Donald said. "We'll be monitoring you guys every step of the way. Once you've given us the clear, the two of us will infiltrate the system at the facility to unlock the room Leo's being held in. Hopefully he's able to get out in time. Once you see him, take him and _run_."

"Wait. There are so many rooms in that place. How do you know which one he's in?" Adam asked.

Torrance and Donald exchanged glances. "We don't," Torrance answered. "That is why we're unlocking all of them."

Bree frowned. "Wouldn't Douglas know that something's up if a door suddenly opens without him doing anything?" she asked.

"That's why we have to be quick. We need to move in before he figures that we've come," Chase said. Then, he mumbled, "That's if he doesn't know already that we're coming, of course."

Donald picked up three small, shiny black devices from the cyber desk, all of which were similar to each other, as he said, "At full speed with the boat, you guys should reach the island by sundown. Once you get there, deactivate these."

After reaching out for one, Adam asked, "What is it?"

"Signal blockers, but these are modified to only block the signal coming into your chips. It shouldn't interrupt the ones coming into the com set," his father answered. "We can't have Douglas spotting you guys from miles away because of the built-in GPSs in your chips and stopping you before you even reach the island."

"Oh. That's why we're not taking the helicopter, isn't it?" Adam asked as he examined the device.

Donald nodded. "Arriving unexpected is a card we could always play to our advantage," he said.

He looked at his children one by one. Although all three of them were preoccupied with the signal blockers, he still forced his features to conceal the trepidation he felt inside so they wouldn't see. It was almost routine, for him to be so nervous before they embark on a mission. It wasn't that he didn't think they were capable; it was that he feared the incontrollable factors that could suddenly present themselves and cost him his children's safety. Especially now that he knew what it was like to lose a child, how it would be like from watching his wife during those first months, the possibility of any or all of them not coming home was all the more unbearable.

He didn't know how he could live if he lost any of them.

"Try to get out of there before it gets dark. Subject E's ability is an advantage we don't have," he told his children. Stepping closer to Adam and Bree, he said to the three, "Please. Be very, very careful. I need the four of you to come back home safe to us."

Recognizing the warmth on their father's tone, Adam, Bree and Chase responded agreeably.

As Donald began helping his older siblings with attaching the signal blockers to their mission suits, Chase started to do the same on his own. The task proved more difficult than it was supposed to be due to his mind being divided between that and the mission that lied ahead of them. His fingers gradually lost grip the more he focused on the back-up plans they needed to have. He would only pay attention to the device when it was nearly falling off, but as he got a good handle on it, his thoughts would drift again, and he would neglect concentration on it.

Before he could give up, another pair of hands took hold of the signal blocker then skillfully positioned them for a proper attachment.

Torrance didn't return his gaze when he lifted his eyes up at her. Instead, she continued to wind the device towards each other to lock it. "Subject F has kinetic absorption," she said quietly to avoid calling attention to the two of them as Adam and Bree asked their father a few more questions.

Despite his surprise from her presence, Chase still answered, "I know. We need to make sure he won't get close enough to us to touch us."

It took a few more seconds for Torrance to finish. When she did, she finally turned her eyes up to him. "Are you scared?" she asked.

Chase smiled a small smile, knowing that with her, he didn't have to lie. "Yeah," he said. "But knowing that I won't go through this alone makes it a bit better."

Torrance smiled back, and it made Chase feel an odd lightness in his chest. "Come back safe and sound, Chase Davenport. You and all your siblings," she said.

"Okay," Chase said. He then turned around to face his family at that moment, unable to catch the knowing glances his father and his siblings darted each other after catching a glimpse of the two of them. He asked, "Are we ready?"

Bree responded by getting into position, holding out her elbows for her brothers to hold onto. Adam adjusted the strap of the bag slung across him before locking arms with his sister. Then, both of them looked at Chase.

"Don't forget to turn the devices on after you've boarded the boat," Donald instructed as Chase joined his siblings. "Test it first, just to make sure. When everything's set, I'll give you the go signal." After looking at them one more time, he said with a smile, "Bring him home."

Adam smiled.

Bree smirked.

Chase took a deep breath.

Then, in a black and red blur and in a strong gust of wind, the three of them vanished.

* * *

_to be continued._


	18. Eighteen

_Apologies for the non-double update week last week! Things got busy! _

_Many thanks to Glee Clue Rock 1251, LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, phoenixfire (Awesome! I'm glad!), Jillie chan, and AllAmericanSlurp for the reviews. Always much appreciated, guys. _

_It's the chapter before the storm. _

* * *

_Eighteen. _

Leo heaved a breath as another wave of acidic taste rose up to his mouth. However, unlike the first time, he didn't throw up. He supposed it was because his body was running out of things to expel, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. He was still feeling very fatigued, but the sleep he had come out from just some minutes earlier did him well.

Plus, he did find a bit of happiness from the fact that he was able to wake up into reality again.

Disconsolation was still a formidable force that loomed within him, but it wasn't as strong as it was earlier, not to the point that he wanted to act on it like he almost did. At least not immediately. He decided to put up one last fight, pouring into it a terribly great effort, before he could give up. He hoped that would be enough to rid himself of the guilt if he ever had to resort back to that plan again.

He was also more willing to try because of the shifts in his odds, ones that he hoped Douglas didn't know about. The biggest one, of course, was his discovery of his unintentional ability to connect to Darwin, Echo and Fielder so strongly that he could ask them to do anything he wanted. Up until this point, he wasn't sure if he could count that as one of the valuable cards in his hand, but he had a hunch that it may just be the slip-up that his father had mentioned about a day or two ago, the one that his step-uncle had unintentionally made and so had turned the situation around to his favor. Although it made him feel sick to think about controlling the other three teens, if push came to shove, he would have no choice but to ask them for help, just enough to get out of there.

That was, of course, if he could connect to them again. There existed the possibility that what happened between the four of them was a complete fluke. That, or Douglas had done something about it if he had seen it.

If he couldn't escape using that, his chances would slim down to almost nothing, but gaining more mobility would at least help. After coming out from the most recent simulation he underwent, one that involved him getting abducted by masked men into an unknown facility and Darwin, Echo and Fielder rescuing him, he found out that he had recovered considerably. Since Douglas was in the room with him when he came to, standing behind a sizeable cart that had a computer and a few other devices, he couldn't fully test it out, but he was able to do a good assessment before coming to the conclusion that, if he wished to, he could stand up and walk without finding it too big of a problem.

Leo wiped his mouth with the heel of his palm. He was running out of time; that he was sure of. However, he was also sure of his determination to play whatever aces he could draw from the deck to beat Douglas. It may be true that he was weaker and less intelligent in comparison, but he was the most willing to take as many wild shots as possible, and at one point or another that would count for something.

"Are you not eating again?" Leo looked up and saw Douglas still focused on the computer in front of him, lightly frowning at it. "It would help, you know," Douglas added.

"Help who? You or me?" Leo asked snarkily.

Douglas smirked. He stopped typing briefly to glance at him. "Both of us," he said.

"Hard pass."

Douglas chuckled, shaking his head. "You're so stubborn," he said.

Leo said nothing.

"How was the simulation? Your brain was disengaging from it at some points." Douglas gave him a look with an undercurrent of suspicion. "Were you snapping out because you were waking up?"

Leo knew what he was really wondering about: was he disengaging because he was starting to also gain the ability to distance himself from the simulation? Truth be told, he didn't know. It was new to him, too, and initially it had scared him. It was clear during the simulation that the men who took him were intent on doing something to provoke some kind of emotion from him, enough to trigger a response so Darwin, Echo and Fielder would be forced to act, but they seemed to back off for some reason. Whenever he could see them getting ready to hurt him and he would talk himself out of believing the situation to be real, the men would stop, as if they rethought of their next actions. Then, they would carry on without doing what they had intended. This happened only a few times, but it was enough that he noticed them.

Still, he wasn't inclined to tell Douglas about that, as much as he wasn't inclined to tell him about Darwin, Echo and Fielder following what he asks. So, he just answered honestly, "I don't know." Then, he added, "Maybe you should try it and see for yourself."

Douglas smiled, but it was obvious that it was out of irritation. He inputted more commands on his computer before he sighed. "You know, Leo, if you can be a good step-nephew to Uncle Douglas and cooperate, I can upgrade your chip to a bionic chip," he offered.

"Mm, I'd rather not," Leo answered, looking up at the window while thinking of ways to get out of there.

Douglas grinned. "Really?" he said. "I thought that you would've jumped at that chance. Isn't that what you've always wanted? To have abilities like your siblings?"

"Well, knowing that it would come from making a deal with you, I lost interest."

Douglas smirked at him. "You're not afraid of what I can do, are you?"

"If there is one thing I learned about these simulations, it's that there are just some things that are not real, even if they look like they are," Leo said. "I know it looks to you like you have all of the advantages and that this is a sure win, but that's not real either. You're going to find out that all along, you, too, have been kidding yourself. You'd buy into a joke, just like you had done with me, but this time – there's no waking up from this. Whatever happens will be permanent."

"Bold words coming from a damaged game piece."

"I'd rather be damaged than be a failure."

Douglas seemed to ignore his remark when he resumed his work, but Leo could see from his features that his words had irritated and upset his step-uncle. There was also a minute increase in the intensity of his typing that clued Leo into that fact. "Your family's found us; they know where we are," Douglas noted. "They thought they were being smart by sending a worm through my kids' chips, but I used that as bait against them. Adam, Bree and Chase are coming." He gave his nephew a vehement look. "Give me two hours. By then we'll know which one of us can talk about being a failure."

Leo watched him leave the room with the equipment he had, now seemingly determined to prove something. However, who he worried about were his siblings. They were coming, and he had been afraid that would happen. He may have been confident in their abilities in the beginning to overcome everything Douglas would set up, but now that he had seen the details of it all from the inside, he wasn't too sure about it. Especially as he wondered how much about the island, the facility and the other three they knew, his anxiety built up more.

Slowly, he tried to test his strength in getting up on his feet. He pushed against the cement while pulling up his knees so his feet would be steady against the ground. Then, he exerted his weight and energy on leg and knee. It was difficult at first because of how numb his legs and knees have gotten from being off of them for quite a few days, but once the weak feeling in them ebbed away, he was able to stand up, though he was lopsided.

He tried to walk towards the door, which had again vanished behind that cement after the electricity ran through it. His steps were strained and his knees slightly wobbled from the pressure, but he made it there.

He reached out to touch the cement. Cold. Solid. Hard as any wall that could only be destroyed by something or someone with incredible strength. He ignored the hopelessness that threatened to disable him from his plan. There was no room now for self-pity or surrender. The only thing that could consume him should be the formulation of a plan to get through this.

His family was coming, and he was going to give it his best shot to make sure that they get out of here alive.

* * *

_to be continued._


	19. Nineteen

_Many thanks to Glee Clue Rock 1251, RandomWaffle5505, LabGirl2001, Chibi-Twan, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Jillie chan, Mickey12Boo and xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx for your reviews!_

_Apologies for the lack of update. Workflow was kinda strong last week. _

_Hope this nice, long, and pretty intense chapter makes it up. :)_

_Head's up, though: certain spots may present emotional triggers. None too strong, I don't think, but do be warned just in case. _

* * *

_Nineteen. _

The island was as small as it had appeared on the map. The trees that crowded it, mostly palm and other tropical ones, made it smaller still. Docking almost proved difficult as Adam, Bree and Chase approached the island since a good stretch of it was covered with its pristinely beautiful but very lonely beach, but after going around they found a secluded place with deep enough water to leave the powerboat on.

While Adam helped Bree off the boat and into the ground, Chase noted how late it was getting. The sun burned orange gold at the sky, casting a deep auburn glow on their surroundings. Though it was still light, he knew from its position that it wouldn't be long until darkness came upon them. He had every intention of doing what his father asked. They would find the facility, find Leo, and get out. He had only seen the blurred images of the other three bionic teens during that wildfire in Virginia, and that was enough for him. He had no desire to meet them in person, especially with how unprepared they were.

Scanning around him, Chase immediately spotted a building. It wasn't too hard to notice. Though most of that side of the island was densely covered with trees, the facility was tall enough to peek through a person's line of vision.

"Okay, I don't know about you two, but this place is seriously giving me the creeps," Adam commented in a hushed tone as he and Bree walked up to either side of Chase. He glanced around, and his skin slightly crawled despite the temperate weather. "It's too quiet. It feels like someone's watching us," he added.

Despite the stillness also frightening her, Bree smirked. Quietly, she started to cluck like a chicken to tease Adam.

Adam glared at her.

"We should probably turn these off now," Chase told his siblings before clicking on the power button on his signal blocker. As the light on the device slowly faded, Chase talked through his com set, "Mr. Davenport, we're here."

_"Okay, good. How's it looking in there?"_

Chase gave their surrounding another glance. "I don't know. Like Adam said, it's too quiet," he said, trying his best not to let his anxiety sound through. "We're not reading any movements."

_"Alright. Torrance is at the ready with the doors," _Donald said. _"How far are you from the facility?"_

"Not very far. It'll take us about two minutes if we walk it," Chase said while looking back at Adam and Bree to see if they had powered off their signal blockers. The light on theirs were only a few seconds away from completely fading out like his had.

_"Your signal blockers are off?"_

"Yes."

_"Good." _

Chase beckoned his older siblings ahead before he started walking. "We're going in now, Mr. Davenport," he said, increasing his alertness as they came farther.

_"Okay. I'm monitoring your distance from the facility. When you're close enough, we'll unlock the doors. Torrance is checking for any activity around you. We'll give you a head's up if something turns up."_

Chase nodded. "Thank you," he said before turning his attention back to the task at hand.

The three of them fell into silence as they came closer to their destination. Though Adam was inclined to make a comment, Bree to ask a question and Chase to repeat an instruction, just like their usual routine whenever they were on a mission, their desire to remain as peripherally sensitive as possible caused them to keep to themselves for the meantime. Especially now that they noticed the greeneries getting thicker and thicker, obscuring more from their lines of sight, they wanted to be very attentive for the unexpected.

Like Adam, Chase felt as if there were eyes watching them. With every second that went by, he anticipated something or _someone_ to jump out, but nothing happened. Oddly, it made him all the more nervous. The only thoughts that calmed him down were that of his older siblings being there with him, of his father and Torrance listening in, and of his little brother being there, just waiting to see them.

When they were three-quarters of the way in to their destination, Donald spoke through their com sets, causing them to stop in their tracks. _"You guys have a clear vision of the building?" _he asked.

"Yes," Chase said.

Silence. Then, _"Torrance is unlocking the doors." _

Chase took a deep breath.

_"They're going to know you're there once she opens them. Like I said, you need to be very careful," _Donald said.

Chase looked back at Adam and Bree, both of whom were as nervous as he was. "Let's go."

They gained pace as they continued on, more resolute now to act on the mission quickly.

_"Right now, there's not much—" _

The three of them cringed in pain as a high frequency screech sliced through their ears. They tried to block it out with their hands, but that only provided very little help. The sound was torturous, and all they wanted, especially Chase, was for it to stop.

After what seemed like a long time, it did. As Adam, Bree and Chase shook off the nearly debilitating pain building in their heads, a girl in a dark green mission suit stepped in between them and the facility.

_"What was that?" _Donald asked.

The three glowered at her. "Subject E," Chase answered his father and addressed the girl at the same time.

Echo smiled. "Subject C," she returned. "The three of you are just in time."

"You've been waiting for us?"

Echo shrugged. "We've been expecting you," she said.

Chase exchanged glances with Adam and Bree.

Douglas did know that they were coming. It _was _a trap.

"You shouldn't have come," Echo told them. "You're never going to get him."

Bree stepped in front of her brothers. "We'll see about that," she said.

To make a way for her brothers, Bree super sped to the left. However, as she moved, Echo moved quickly, too. Seeing this, Bree rushed to the right, but like a mirror image, Echo did the same, successfully impeding her.

Echo expected a defeated expression to overcome Bree's face. Yet, what rose on the girl's features was a smirk. "You guys go," Bree told her brothers. "I got this."

Despite the worry they felt for their sister, Adam and Chase did what she told them to do, cautiously running eastward and soon vanishing in the clusters of trees riddling that part of the island.

Echo watched them as they went, having no intentions at all of following them. When they were gone, she focused her attention back to Bree. "Do you know that we're alike?" she asked. "I'll know your every move, Bree, because I am you."

Bree scoffed softly. "You're not me," she told her. "You're just a copy. I'm the original."

Echo chuckled, and this created in Bree a sickening feeling as it told her that getting past the other bionic girl wouldn't be as easy as she'd hoped. "We'll see about that," Echo said, just as a cool afternoon breeze blew through the island.

* * *

Though without a clock, Leo could tell that it had been hours since Douglas left. It made him anxious, for two reasons. One was that from where he was, he couldn't tell what was happening with the world outside. All he could see were those leaves and branches, which he seemed to have seen in every sort of shade, every sort of condition ever since he was trapped there. Knowing that his siblings could be there in the island, he wanted more than ever to get a glimpse of what was behind those walls. He wanted them to know where he was.

However, the window was situated too high up, and he didn't have any means to climb up to it.

The other reason was that he knew he was about to run out of time. He was sure that if Douglas decided to put him under a simulation again, this time he would not get out. It troubled him greatly to think that he could only be yards away from his family, only to be forever pulled off to some far and unreal program where he would never see them again.

Worse yet, he could be used to hurt them.

Leo resumed his seemingly fruitless project of searching for any inconsistencies on the cement wall where the door usually appeared.

"Nothing?" Jason asked as he walked up behind Leo.

Leo sighed, pausing for a moment. "No," he said. He began knocking on the cement to listen to how the sound bounces back. "This is hopeless."

Jason smiled. "Not necessarily true," he said. "You might not be able to do anything at this end, but I'm sure they'll make a way for you."

Leo stopped when he felt exhausted. After taking a quick breather, he walked towards the window far enough to be able to observe the skies, then gauged the occurrences outside by how everything moved.

"You're hoping to see them, aren't you?" Jason asked.

Leo was, but he didn't say it. He didn't need to anyways; both of them knew. Instead, he addressed a possible outcome of it all. "In case they don't…" he started but drifted off. He turned around to face his father. "Will you be mad at me if, um…"

Jason understood. "Hold on to the very last minute. That's all I ask," he said.

Leo nodded. He looked out the window again. "I miss Mom," he said.

Jason smiled in consolation.

The easy way the wind swayed the trees outside was magnetic. It was so captivating that, for a moment, Leo could imagine himself sitting under the shade, watching as the leaves sluggishly moved back and forth. It was relaxing, the thoughts of freedom it incited in him.

He almost got too lost in it that he nearly missed the quick gusts of wind that suddenly blew past the window. One, two. He thought it was a figment of his imagination at first, but the way the branches rustled frantically in the wake of these swift movements – an honest reaction that couldn't have been created by his mind – told him otherwise.

The effect he saw could have only come from a bionic ability. It was unmistakable.

_Two _people had just super sped past the simulation chamber.

Eyes slightly wide in shock, Leo looked back at Jason.

Jason smiled. "They're here," he said, sincerely happy for him.

"Do you think I—"

The sound of electricity going off caused Leo to take a half-step back as he expected Douglas to suddenly come into the room after the door appeared in the cement wall. His heart hammered loudly in his chest as he waited and waited and waited. After a while, though, nobody came.

Carefully, Leo headed towards the door. He stared at the latch that doubled as its knob, wondering why all of a sudden the opportunity to get out was made available to him. Was this a trick? Was Douglas misleading him into thinking he was free only to use it as a springboard for his plan? Or, was this because his family had found where he was and had unlocked the room for him?

Decisively, Leo grabbed the latch then pulled it up with all of his might. He promised to give this last shot his all, and he was going to make sure that everything counted.

When the door opened after he pushed it, he quickly examined the conditions outside. It almost surprised him to see the same dull gray color of the simulation chamber characterizing the walls of the corridor. There was a low whirring sound nearby, coming from machines that he supposed were sitting some distance away. Combined with that was an intense whooshing noise, which he decided must come from whatever flowed through the various colored pipes suspended up on the ceiling.

He thought at first that he would also see someone, but he didn't. From one side clear to the next, the corridor was empty.

Leo took a step out to venture further, but then he stopped. He turned back towards the simulation chamber, his hand tightly gripping the door less he let go and he became locked in again, and looked at the person he had left behind.

Jason's smile increased. "Go," he told him. "It's time for you to be with your family now."

Leo stared at him, his heart breaking over again as he remembered his father. It had been ten years since he last talked to him, since he last saw him smile like that. He missed him greatly. "Thank you," he said.

Jason nodded. As Leo turned to leave, Jason called out to him, "Leo." When Leo swiveled back to face him, he asked with a knowing smile, "You do know who I really am, right?"

Leo didn't have to think long about it. He smiled back. "Yeah," he said.

"Always know that Dad loves you. It's never going to change," Jason said. He then nodded ahead. "Now go get out of here."

Leo grinned at him.

Then, after checking and seeing that all was clear, he hurried off towards the left hall, leaving behind the room that had long imprisoned him.

* * *

They sneaked up on her. Torrance was absolute that no one was going to show up, but one of them did. She remembered the dangerous gut feeling that kicked in somewhere within her when, while she was watching the dots that represented Adam, Bree and Chase, a new blip appeared on the tracker. She didn't have much time to warn them because as soon as it happened, that deafening scream flooded the com set feed, causing her and Donald to cover their ears instinctively.

Now, just barely two minutes after that incident, she saw two different dots chasing each other in a speed that was almost too fast to be true.

At the cyber desk, Donald was preoccupied with what Torrance only supposed was gaining better access to what was going on in the island. He was in a constant conversation with Adam and Chase, asking them where they were and if they have had any sighting at all of their sister or of Leo. Since the feed streamed freely in the lab, she could hear what they were saying. Both boys sounded very focused, which was no surprise to her knowing how much and how long they had been trained for missions like these, but she could tell that they were worried. They didn't know what was happening with Bree, didn't know where the other two male subjects were, and they have yet to see their brother.

As Torrance stared at the screens at the mission specialist desk, particularly the ones that showed all the doors to the facility unlocked and the one that showed the tracker, she realized that what they had wasn't enough. They needed to see what the opponent was seeing – and they needed to have the exclusive right to it. It was the perfect vision that would help them greatly and would make this easier.

She was confident in her abilities as a hacker, but her past encounter with Douglas when they were in New York had been nothing short of unpromising. No doubt, the man was better than she was. He was only really stopped because someone had thought of unplugging the computers.

She paused. Leo always could think of the things she couldn't. Though she didn't want to admit it before, their minds worked in ways that complemented each other. He thought of the most outrageous solutions to problems that worked when her ideas didn't.

Now, she was going to have to think like both of them if she wanted her plan to succeed.

After taking a deep breath, Torrance called, "Donald Davenport."

"Yeah," Donald said, frowning at the cyber desk as he worked systematically through the queue of tasks on it.

"Do you trust me?"

The question caused Donald to slow down on his work until it came to a grinding halt. He looked at her curiously. "Why?"

"Because I am about to take a risk and put all of what we have on the line."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to hack into Douglas Davenport's system for an attempt of getting all of what he has."

The wrinkle on Donald's features cleared, only to give way to an expression of doubt. "I don't know about this, Torrance," he said. "I trust you, I do, but I don't know if I could afford losing communication with my kids. I need to know what's happening with them. But then again…" After contemplating on it further, he asked, "What exactly are you thinking of doing?"

Torrance took out her laptop from the bag underneath the desk then powered it on. "Redirecting anything that could be streaming into his computers to ours," she answered. "That involves the tracking for Subjects D, E and F, perhaps even a program that could override them. We can lock your brother out and buy your children considerable time. We can locate Leo."

"And what if Douglas bests us?"

After a pause, Torrance answered, "Our lines of communication will be compromised, and we will have to shut down everything. Your children will be on their own."

Donald took a deep breath as he pondered over the positives and the negatives of the plan. As it was, they had already taken so many risks in going in barely prepared in this. At that moment, his nerves were overworked just thinking about Bree and how her battle against the other bionic girl could end up. He didn't know how he would feel if he had to resort to total darkness. He didn't want to be in the blind when it came to his children.

But then, he also knew that Douglas had the upper hand. The only logical way, really, of overturning that was to snatch it away from him. "Can you really do this?" he asked her.

"The only promise I can make is my best attempt at it," Torrance said, understanding the reluctance he was feeling.

After considering this, Donald nodded. "Do it," he said.

Torrance prepared everything that she needed. After making sure that her laptop had warmed up enough and that she was outstandingly knowledgeable of the controls on the mission specialist desk to be able to work on it and her own device quickly, she poised to begin her task. Before she could, however, it came to her that even if she was at her best when she worked alone, this required more than just her. "Donald Davenport."

"Yeah."

"I need your help," she said, realizing then how foreign that sounded coming from her.

Donald seemed to pick up on that, but instead he just said, "Sure, okay. What do you need me to do?"

"I'm going to start off by opening different files in his computer. Anything I'll see, I'll get into," Torrance responded. "More than likely, he will block me and try to close everything, but before he could completely do so there should be a very short period of time where we can copy what we'll open."

Donald nodded as he understood. "You want me to follow close by you," he said. "Make the copies."

"Yes," Torrance said. "After a while, you will need to take over what I started."

"You're going to take him on afterwards?"

Torrance nodded. "I will start attacking his system and blocking him off from it," she said, trying her best not to let the uncertainty she felt over the plan consume her.

Donald shifted some of the opened windows on the cyber desk to the side, even closing a few of them to keep himself from being distracted and to ensure that the desk will run smoothly. He looked up at her when he was done and set. "I'm good to go. Tell me when to come in."

Torrance looked down on her laptop. Not counting the surprise attack at New York, it had been a while since she had really tested her skills in hacking. Even then, the opponent she'd had didn't present that big of a threat. However, now, she would be facing off against somebody who had known how to do it for as long as she had been alive.

She silently took a deep breath to vanquish the anxieties bothering her.

Then, she began.

* * *

Douglas watched with amusement as everything unfolded on the screens in front of him. It was laughable how his brother and those children took the bait so easily. Donald really thought that he could pull one over him. Granted, discovering those worms had come as a surprise to him, but subverting them into something useful to his plan was easy. At that time, the project was near its fulfillment anyways, and it was time for Adam, Bree and Chase to come.

Watching the simulation where Leo and Chase spoke to each other was a highlight. The boys had no idea he was seeing everything and was letting it all play out. He almost jumped in and gave Leo the answer when Chase asked him where he was. He was thinking of clandestinely tampering with the supposedly 'neutral' simulation to get the kid to know their location, but he knew that it wouldn't be conducive to what he wanted. Forcing him to say it would clue them into his involvement with that simulation.

So, he waited until the kid figured it out. He even left his systems tremendously vulnerable for them afterwards so they could get enough information to lure them in, until they finally found them there.

Douglas checked on the tracker showing the location of all seven children. Bree and Echo had been going around the island for some time now, chasing each other. Adam and Chase, on the other hand, had just entered the facility, unknowingly heading towards the hall where Darwin and Fielder were waiting for them.

As much as it seemed like it was hatred that fueled him into doing all of these, it wasn't. He neither hated his brother nor his family.

But, he was angry. Terribly, _savagely_ angry at them – and that was enough.

A notice then appeared in one of the corner screens, alerting him to an intrusion to his computer.

With a smirk, Douglas sat up. "Took you long enough, Torrance. I was beginning to think you wouldn't show up," he muttered. As he began counterattacking, he added, "Give this your best shot, little girl, huh?"

* * *

Adam didn't exactly know why but to him, it didn't feel right. He and Chase had just stepped foot inside the facility, with his little brother leading the way, but something was telling him that they shouldn't keep going. He supposed it could be because of the narrow, dank, and poorly lit corridor that stretched ahead of them. He was still sure that someone was watching them closely, which, since it was Douglas they were dealing with, someone may very well be.

However, he knew that the ill-feeling had a lot to do with Bree. Leaving her to deal with the other teenage girl was for the best, but he didn't want her to be alone. If anything, they should stick together. Who knew what could happen to her out there? What if the other two kids show up all of a sudden and do what he feared they would do?

These thoughts suddenly anchored Adam down to his spot. He looked at Chase as he kept going but soon, his younger brother seemed to notice that he had stopped and had fallen some paces behind.

Chase frowned after facing him. "Adam?" he said.

Adam stared at him, a worried look on his face. He shook his head. "We can't leave her, Chase," he said.

Chase's features cleared when he understood. "I know," he said, "but the sooner we find Leo, the sooner we'll get out of here."

The anxiety in the pit of his stomach clenched harder. "We can't separate like this. We don't know what that girl can do," he insisted. When he saw Chase heavily weighing their options, he added, "I can't lose another sibling again, Chase. Not again."

Adam knew that Leo didn't have enough time, and their lives depended on how fast they could pull themselves out of that island. He knew it was important that they keep going but – the three of them had to stick together. They were stronger that way. Plus, he was sure Leo would prefer to see all of his siblings, to know all of them had come for him, instead of seeing just two and wondering about Bree's safety like he was.

Unbeknownst to him, Chase had arrived at the same conclusion. He nodded. "Okay. Let's go back. Let's go find Bree," he said before walking past him, briefly clapping a hand on his shoulder on his way out the entrance.

Adam began to follow him but stopped to take a long glance down the hall. Silently, he wished that his other brother could hold on just a little bit longer for them. They would be with him soon; they just needed to help Bree.

After this, he followed Chase towards the maze of trees that would no doubt be engulfed soon by the night.

* * *

"O-kay, it's either I got out too late," he whispered under his breath, "or the fresh air is making me super trippy."

After running into a dead end and getting lost several times, Leo was making his way through what he hoped to be a different corridor. Telling them all apart was difficult because they all looked similar. All of the halls were long stretches of gray cement, with pipes of the same colors and with dimly white lights shining overhead. Once, he came across one where a huge machine sat back on a wide space.

He hadn't seen it since, so that was good. At least that told him that he hadn't gone back to that direction again.

He tried to rely on other indicators like the number of doors and the number of flickering or blown out lightbulbs (if there was one) to mark the places where he had been, but he was starting to get lightheaded that he couldn't keep a decent account of the information he was gathering. He had slowed down in his walking, hoping that that would ease him out of the slight dizziness and exhaustion, and it did – to a degree. He found that though his mind wanted to keep going, his body demanded a rest. His choice to ignore that had been catching up to him these past few minutes, and it came in the forms of increasing disorientation and what he really wished was not hallucination.

He was doing his best in not letting the situation frustrate or scare him. For some reason, he was hearing voices. At first, he thought it was just the steam rushing at the pipes overhead, but then he heard words and phrases spoken in a tone that, he was sure, the inanimate objects couldn't have created.

It was just like those dreams with Darwin, Echo and Fielder, when he had connected to them while he was asleep and saw and heard what they saw and heard. This time, however, he was only getting glimpses of what they were hearing.

And what he was hearing were the voices of his siblings.

After he turned the corner, Leo sighed. Three doors, two close to each other and one near the far end, and the second lightbulb from the farthest door blinking rapidly. He had been here before. So, he looked around him and decided to go to the right this time. He could keep going there and see where it would take him.

_…could ask you the same thing. _

Leo covered his left ear while he used his right hand to support himself against the wall as he continued walking. "Come on, Bree… Get out of my head…" he muttered half-jokingly.

He was set to keep on going until he heard something ahead. Someone was coming. After catching sight of the shadow, the built of the person reminding him of Douglas, he quickly headed towards the nearest door and went inside. In the dark room were piles of computers and other devices, all of them collecting dust. From the little light coming in through the gap under the door, he saw what looked like capsules near the back. He decided to hide in the space between them. When he settled down, he tried to breathe as quietly as he could so as not to give away his location.

He waited, listening intently to the muffled hisses of the steam in the pipes outside and the steady footsteps getting louder and louder. He closed his eyes and hoped that his step-uncle would never find him. He didn't want to go back in that room again.

Still, he braved a peek at the door from behind the capsule.

From the dull silver light coming in from under the door, he saw a shadow of someone's feet.

Someone was outside.

Leo returned to his hiding place then closed his eyes. He had no fight in him. He wouldn't be able to ward off Douglas' attempts to drag him back, to drag him away from being free.

At that moment, he desperately hoped that his older siblings could come and protect him.

He waited a while, even counted to twenty as he looked for a means to escape, before looking at the door again.

Just light. No feet.

The person had left.

Though he shouldn't, Leo allowed himself a small sigh of relief.

_See how'd you'd do against…_

_…do is to keep him safe._

_…won't be that…_

Leo covered his ears again because that time, not only did he hear Chase, he also heard Echo and Fielder. Pressure was also building rapidly inside his head, making his nerves throb painfully. "Stop. Please. Stop," he said firmly, his words coming out as a harsh whisper. It didn't matter who or what stopped; he just wanted the skull-splitting migraine to go away.

He nearly yelled out in pain when a very loud scream assaulted his hearing. The frequency jolted his nerves more, and it in turn made his headache very unbearable. _Stop. Please, stop, _he pleaded. He didn't know if one of his siblings had used a newly discovered ability or if it was one of the other three who had it and had used it, but he didn't want to hear that again.

_Don't fight them anymore, _he thought, hoping that the other three could understand him. _Just stop. Stop. _

* * *

Bree looked down on the still form with a frown as she walked towards her.

Adam and Chase followed, similar expressions of surprise and confusion wrinkling their features. "Did we kill her?" Adam asked, an undercurrent of fear running in his words as he stared at Echo, who now lied unconscious on the partly sandy terrain.

Chase shook his head pensively. "No," he said. "She's probably just knocked out."

"Should we check?" Adam asked.

Chase glared at him. "Do _you_ want to?" he asked sardonically.

"You're the mission leader. Shouldn't that be your thing?" Adam asked.

Chase furrowed his brows more at his older brother before scoffing and crossing his arms.

Ignoring her brothers' argument, Bree continued to stare down at Echo, her breathing heavy after the dangerous game of tag that they had played. The other girl had just given her the biggest challenge of her life to date. Difficult as it was to admit, Echo had moved faster than she had. She also didn't lie in telling her that she would know Bree's every move. Trying to defeat Echo was like trying to outsmart her own reflection in the mirror: it was impossible. Her starting goal of subduing the girl quickly changed into keeping her busy long enough so that her brothers could carry out the mission and finish it without having to worry about the other speedster.

Honestly, at one point, she had almost given up. The odds seemed very much against her, and the only thing she could do was to let everything fall into place as slowly as possible. Thankfully, her brothers showed up to help before Echo could launch another attack.

Now, Echo was defeated.

Still, how it happened seemed off to her. When Echo followed through her warning, Chase activated his force field to deflect the sound waves her scream would create, and it worked. The vibrations had bounced off then hit the girl like a strong ocean current, flinging her off her feet and knocking her out.

What unsettled Bree was the look on Echo's face before the waves pushed her off. The other girl's features drained of any emotion all of a sudden. The confident smirk on her lips vanished, and there was a blank look in her eyes. It was as if she was reset at that moment, as if she accepted the counterattack intentionally.

It was as if someone told her to stop fighting, and she obeyed.

Bree wasn't too sure how to feel about that.

She felt a light tap on her forearm. She looked back and saw Chase. "Come on, Bree. Let's go in," he said. "We should probably make the best out of one of them being knocked out like this."

Distractedly, Bree nodded. She watched as her brothers headed back to the entrance.

She looked down at Echo one more time before following them. Her gut churned.

If Echo hadn't stopped fighting, she was sure that it would have been the three of them who would've ended up lying there under the dark shades of the trees, lifeless and defeated.

* * *

The sound of furious typing thickly filled the lab. Torrance was standing perfectly in between her laptop and the mission specialist desk, swinging back and forth between the two according to what the need called for. Her focus was intensely on her task that everything, save for the equipment she needed and the occasional comment from Donald, melted into nothing. Time had ceased to go by each tick of the second; now it went by each click of the key.

She had been volleying against Douglas for a while now, and as she had predicted, it had not been easy. The rogue inventor was very quick to block her every move that Donald barely had the time to copy what was coming in. Some files shut close as soon as they opened, so they were not able to access those at all. Twice, Douglas tried to derail them by setting traps in the files, filling them with harmful viruses so that these would upload as soon as they were touched.

Torrance had been thankful at that moment that she had asked Donald for help, because the older of the two brothers had impressively counteracted the unwanted programs, removing the obstacles off their path successfully.

As they had agreed, after a few minutes of attempting to wear their enemy down, Donald left the work to her, instead focusing his attention on the new material they were able to find and relaying that information to Adam, Bree and Chase. That change was both unwelcomed and welcomed. Having someone assist her would have made what she was striving to accomplish a little easier, but at the same time, not having to worry about the other person not synchronizing perfectly with her gave her the freedom she needed.

Although, she was beginning to think that either way, she would still end up in this cramped situation she found herself in.

After a slew of viruses and counterattacks, Torrance feared that it wouldn't be long until she was overpowered. She had been backed into a tight corner, leaving her with a terribly small space for movement. She had chosen not to tell Donald until her losing was absolutely at the doorstep. Not only did she not want to worry him, she also didn't want to add to the weighty turn of events he was dealing with because of the mission.

So, she kept going. She kept her arsenal of knowledge in hacking at the forefront of her mind and employed whichever one she saw fit.

She fended off Douglas' fourth attempt to access the feed between Donald and the three. She was barely able to keep him out of their trackers not too long ago using an approach that an old mentor had once taught her. She had used that method twice already, and it seemed like her opponent had adapted to it.

Though she had only met him on file, it was not hard to imagine how the other hacker reacted to the imminent victory for him. Leo had described his step-uncle so many times and so vividly that she knew he was relishing the sight of her squirming under his feet. She could almost watch him smile malevolently, anticipating the sole control he would have once he infiltrated their system and cut off any and all communications between the five of them. She could almost hear his chuckle, low and foreboding and sure, bubbling up from somewhere deep within as he eyed his first three creations and the boy whom he had stolen away, thinking that they would never escape from him.

And she wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

However, it would be a mistake on his part to think that. She was not some helpless prey who he could pin to the ground easily. She may be less experienced, but she was as good in playing dirty as he was, if not better.

Torrance abandoned her initial plans for a new one, an unexpected one. Douglas was steady in his approach, so she needed to knock him off balance. Keenly, she studied his moves and kept an eye out for any patterns. Once she had seen them, she began to enact on a plan.

Then, something came to her.

Patterns. As hackers, they relied on patterns.

_The keyboard._

Though what she was about to do really risked everything they had, Torrance eagerly acted on it. "I'm going to let your brother take away the com set feed, Donald Davenport," she said as she accessed a program she had been keeping in her laptop.

Donald looked at her in shock. "I'm sorry, _what_?"

"It may be best to tell your children we'll be off air for some time," Torrance said, still focused on her new task.

"Wait, wait. I can't – We can't let that happen!" Donald protested.

Torrance forewent the reply. Instead, she eased up on warding off Douglas' attacks, letting him think she was still defending the feed even if she wasn't anymore.

Soon, the feed was overtaken.

The sudden silence from the other end caused Donald to panic. "Adam? Bree? Chase? Can you guys hear me?" he asked. He typed in a command on the cyber desk. "_Guys_, can you hear me? Chase—Torrance. What just happened?"

"I don't know. I…I don't understand. I thought that was going to work!" Torrance said, doing her best in sounding as frustrated and as horrified as possible despite her feeling neither of those emotions. The information on her screen showed that her opponent had just diverted the broadcast of the com sets to his computer. He was listening to them now, and she wanted him to think she was losing.

That would make his overconfidence increase—and she was going to use that weakness against him.

"Okay, okay," Donald said, running a hand through his hair. "I'm going to jump in there with you. What needs to be done?"

"We just need to keep blocking him out," she said. Then, looking at him seriously, she slowly shook her head. _Don't do anything, _she mouthed to him.

Donald frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

_Your brother is listening, _she mouthed back then tapped her ear before pointing upwards to indicate what was happening. "He's overloading the servers to force a crash. They need to be cleared out," she said while staring at Donald, willing for him to understand what she couldn't openly say.

It took him a few seconds. Then, Donald's eyes widened in understanding. "Okay," he said, taking his place behind the desk to play along. "What about the trackers? Are they secure?"

"Yes," she said as she embedded the virus in it. "I'm putting in a security around it now."

"Good. Keep at it. I'll do the clearing work."

Donald hadn't even finished speaking when his brother began to access the trackers. "No, no, no," Torrance muttered as a pretense while she lured the other hacker into a trap.

A few seconds later, the bait clicked.

Since the virus she put in place was simple, it uploaded to Douglas' computers quickly. Once he showed signs of slowing down, Torrance viciously attacked. One by one, she took back everything that was taken from them, starting from the feed and command of the trackers up to the running programs and necessary files that were associated with the mission.

Her opponent tried to counterattack, but what she had done had thrown him severely off track that soon, he failed to keep up with her.

After attempting to retaliate one more time (a weak attempt at that), he was kicked out of the system.

Torrance redirected everything towards them after she locked her opponent out. She stepped back from the mission specialist desk afterwards, staring at the message on the screen which finally conveyed a victory.

"Is… Is it over?" Donald cautiously asked Torrance.

_"Hey, Mr. Davenport?" _Chase's voice came in through the feed. _"Can you hear us?" _

Donald smiled widely in relief. "Yeah, Chase, I'm – I'm here," he said, looking at Torrance gratefully. His brows wrinkled. "How did you do that?"

"I set up a virus on the trackers, like he had done with the files we tried to access," Torrance said. "The virus reprogrammed how his computer read his keystrokes."

"So you basically rearranged his keyboards?"

Torrance said nothing, but the glint in her eyes was enough to answer his question.

Donald smirked. "Remind me never to cross you," he said, and then continued to speak to his children.

* * *

Douglas angrily slammed his hands on the desk after his third attempt to access his _own_ system failed. He glared at the blinking cursor on the screen as he seethed.

He lost. To a sixteen year-old.

It wasn't supposed to end up like this.

Now, he was the one left in the dark. He didn't know where his children were, where those _intruders_ were, and what was happening. He had no control whatsoever over the situation. Remotely, there was nothing he could do. He was helpless.

He took a deep breath to prevent himself from getting consumed with too much anger. Then, he regrouped his thoughts for a proper assessment of the situation. He soon realized that things weren't as bad as it looked. His children had been trained enough to deal with whatever came up on their own, and they knew what to do.

_Plus, _he thought, _I still have that plan._

* * *

Leo continued walking through the corridor. As far as he could tell, he hadn't been there before, so he found that to be good. He kept his eyes peeled for anything unusual around him. Though his ears were still unreliable, his sight was still in a good condition to warn him of anyone who could be approaching. If Douglas or any of the three were still looking for him, he had to make sure to avoid them.

After turning another corner, it came to him that it had been a while since he heard anything from Darwin, Echo, Fielder and his siblings. Oddly, the silence terrified him more than the noise. Whereas the noise told him that his siblings were fighting together and were alive, the silence told him nothing. It only caused his worry to increase.

He stopped when he heard something. For an unknown reason, instead of pushing him away, this one beckoned him forward. He followed it. It was something that sounded so steady, so familiar.

Somehow, going toward it made him feel safe.

* * *

Adam, Bree and Chase traveled through the facility wordlessly as they busied themselves with the work of scanning their surroundings. Adam gazed at the pipes overhead, mouth slightly opened as he directed the flashlight on his hand towards those for a better examination. The sick feeling she had earlier having mostly worn off, Bree kept an eye out to what was ahead despite the impatience and the boredom gradually overcoming her. Chase, on the other hand, checked all the rooms they passed by for any signs of their brother.

Like with many of the others, that part of the building brought them nothing.

They turned to another hall.

Adam grinned when he saw steam clouding a break in a pipe above. "Ooh!" he chirped a bit too loudly. "Look! That thing has a—"

"Shh!" Chase shushed him. "Why are you being so loud, Adam?"

Adam frowned, lightly pouting after being reprimanded.

Bree redirected her unhappy expression towards their surroundings. Eyeing a flickering lightbulb, she said, "What is it with Douglas and the sub-par living spaces? Didn't he ever have a decent dream home or something?"

Chase opened a door to look inside. "Or something," he answered his sister as he closed the door. "He seems to like living in places where it's nice on the outside and awful on the inside."

"What do you mean?" Adam asked.

"Remember that house where he and Marcus used to live in? It looked pretty decent on the outside," Chase said.

"Oh. Yeah."

"The house in Chula Vista, the one we went to some months ago was the same," Chase added, gazing down the hall that branched off to the right before deciding to pass it by. As he continued walking, he said, "And then there's this island."

_"Have you three gotten any visuals yet of your brother?" _Donald's voice came through the com set.

"No, Mr. Davenport," Chase answered. "We've searched the entire east wing, and we didn't find him. We're heading northwest now."

_"Okay."_

"Are the trackers online yet?" Bree asked.

_"Ours are. Torrance is still trying to see if she can use the GPS on their chips to map Subjects D to F's locations."_

Chase's brows wrinkled. He stopped walking, so Adam and Bree did, too. "Wait. They turned them off?" he asked.

_"It looks like it."_

"Well, what about Leo? Can we get anything out of the chip that he has?"

_"Hmm… I suppose we can." _There was a pause. Then, _"Yeah. We can try."_

Instead of responding to his father, Chase looked at his older siblings. "Come on," he told them. "We should probably keep on going."

The three of them continued on their way. While they searched, they were met with more emptiness. The only interesting thing that Chase found was a room with many types of gadgetry in them, one that included two clouded capsules in the back of the stock.

It was the bad kind of interesting. It was the sort that made his skin crawl.

However, he was not the only one who felt uncomfortable. "How much more do we have to cover?" Adam asked.

"Not much on the west, so just the north and south wing, really," Chase said. He frowned. "Why?"

Adam checked the watch concealed under the sleeve of his mission suit. He had set it according to what the time was in Florida before they left for the islands. The numbers said 7:48 PM. "The four of us just need to be out of here soon," he said.

"Guys?"

Hearing the familiar voice a considerable distance behind them caused Adam, Bree and Chase to turn around.

When they saw him, Chase smiled, because he knew that being with him was real that time around.

Adam only stared, his face in an expression of disbelief. There were too many good feelings vying for attention right at that moment that he didn't know which one to attend to first. Still, it was the best kind of confusion, because he knew that it came from something that he had been waiting for.

Bree, meanwhile, lightly gasped. Her eyes watered as a joyful smile lit up her face. She noticed how different he looked from the last time she saw him. He had grown. He also looked sickly, like he hadn't been much cared for. It made her angry at their uncle, but it only lasted a second because she knew that with them, he would be safe. He'd get better after they take him back home. "Leo."

They read relief in his eyes as he looked at them. Still, the urgency in his demeanor was more prevalent as he looked around. "Come on," he told them before nodding to the left. "They're coming. We need to head out this way."

Chase's brows wrinkled as the three of them ran, heeding his lead. He pointed to a corridor they passed by with his thumb. "Shouldn't we be going back to _that_ direction?" he asked.

"We can't. I saw one of them going through there," he said. He stopped in front of a door before looking at them, obviously breathless from the running. With what seemed like all his might, he pushed the door open by leaning heavily on it before hurriedly gesturing them in. "Come on, come on, we can exit through here!"

They followed quickly, knowing that they had no time to lose. Adam allowed Bree to go first before he and Chase ran after her.

After covering a short distance, however, the three of them stopped.

They were standing, not in the forestry that surrounded the outside of the facility, but inside a very spacious but poorly lit empty room.

They looked around, confused. "Wait," Bree said. "I thought you said this was an exit?"

As the three of them turned to look at him, they saw that the tension and the fear on his face were gone. Instead, he had a smirk on his lips, cold and almost predatory – something that was unusual and that didn't belong there. He gazed at them dangerously, in a way that a criminal looked on at his victims.

Victims that he didn't know. Victims who were complete strangers.

Adam's features wrinkled further in a mixture of suspicion and worry when the teenage boy's eyes began to softly glow blue. "Uh…Leo?" he said. "What's happening with you?"

Ripples of changes began to run through who they thought was their brother, starting from his hands and feet. Inch by inch of his form attached then detached, each bit like the scales of a snake pulling apart then coming together. His outward appearance increasingly changed from that of their youngest sibling to a taller, sandy-haired teenage boy who they had never seen before.

While that was occurring, a dark mist burst to his left, another boy materializing by his side.

Echo walked in at the same time, but it was through the thick cement wall that she came through, as if the very solid structure was only air that couldn't obstruct her.

"Obsoletes," Fielder said, smiling darkly as he, Darwin and Echo eyed Adam, Bree and Chase. "We finally got a chance to meet you."

* * *

_to be continued._


	20. Twenty

_Huge thanks to Glee Clue Rock 1251, LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Phoenixfire, Mickey12Boo, Jillie chan, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, daphrose, AllAmericanSlurp, AlienGhostWizard14, and torrancehacking for the reviews! I appreciate hearing your thoughts, guys, so please keep them coming!_

_(Side note: torrancehacking, you have, like, one of the best guest names ever! I think you just made my week!)_

_I apologize for the five thousand year delay, guys. Something family related is going on in my side of the world (I'll tell you guys later), so I haven't had as much time or even as good as an attention span lately. It's nothing bad, don't worry, but it does keep me from updating and writing and all that good stuff. :) _

_Anyways, with that said, the next update may not come until August. I'm sorry! BUT, hopefully, this chapter's long enough to make up for it. _

_Thank you to everyone who's still sticking with this little story! I hope you enjoy this chapter._

* * *

_Twenty._

After cautiously turning the corner, Leo came across a room with the door wide open. He stuck close to the wall as he peered in, making sure first that there were no dangers waiting for him inside. After surveying it twice and concluding that it probably had been abandoned, perhaps even in a hurry, he went in.

There were no doubts that he was inside a control room. Basing on its size, it may have been a secondary one – a back-up, in case the main one became compromised. It wasn't very spacious and was actually clogged with some devices and gadgets that appeared to have just been thrown to the side after they were used or discarded. Servers ate up much of the space in the back. They were huge, greater than he was in width and height, and their whirring echoed potently in the air.

Opposite of these was a control panel. He vaguely remembered the system from when he, his brother, and his stepfather went to Chula Vista a long time ago. It had the same three screens, all propped up on the dark, metallic desk that lightly curbed around the seat in the middle. In front of the middle screen was the keyboard.

It won over his attention. Walking towards it, Leo saw that all the screens were blank, save for the green, blinking cursor at the top leftmost part of them. _Locked._ Douglas may have locked them before he left the room, he thought. He knew that to undo it, he needed to figure out the password, but with how fuzzy and disorderly his mind was, he knew that that would be a feat nearly impossible to accomplish.

Still, he had to try. He needed a way to contact his family, either his siblings who were there in the island with him or his stepfather and his friend who were probably back home, to let them know where he was. They were running out of time, he knew, so the faster his siblings could locate him, the sooner they could leave.

He pulled the keyboard closer to him and then began to type. _D-E-F-L-E-C-T-I—_

The dots representing the characters vanished before he could finish, and the cursor went back to its original spot. The screen then went dead.

Wrong password.

Leo sighed. The password had an eight character limit, and with how long it took for the cursor to come back on the screen, it appeared that attempts were separated by a time gap. With so many possible combinations, it would take him weeks to figure it out. Time was not a luxury he had.

However, failure was also not one of them. It had been his resolve to keep his siblings safe, and he was not going to give up on it.

Even if it meant they would go back home without him, he was going to make sure they stayed safe.

* * *

Adam, Bree and Chase slowly backed away as Darwin, Echo and Fielder spread out, successfully blocking the only door that would lead them out of the room. They looked at them with apprehension. Although the three of them were together and would definitely be in their strongest, they were not sure if that would be enough. Adam was quick to think of ways to get out of this situation, mentally enumerating methods to get their mission accomplished with as less damage to anyone involved as possible.

Chase did the same, but he was more focused on drawing up the best counterattacks to the abilities he knew they would encounter soon. However, like Bree, he wasn't sure how they would measure. _If_ they would, actually. Echo by herself was almost too much to handle. He believed that they were only able to bring her down earlier because he caught her off-guard by chance. If he hadn't, he didn't even know if they could have made it this far.

Now, with Darwin and Fielder by her side, Chase wasn't very confident they would get out unscathed.

The best they could do was try.

"I'm a little disappointed with you, though, Subject C. I heard you hurt my sister," Fielder said. He shook his head after clicking his tongue. "I thought you were a good guy. Didn't take you to be the kind of man who hurts a woman."

"I wasn't trying to hurt her. I was protecting my siblings and myself from her," Chase said defensively, taking what had been said as a deep cut. "She was attacking us."

Echo smiled. "I wasn't attacking you, Subject C," she said. "I was just warning you."

Bree scoffed. "Some warning that was," she muttered.

Echo glanced at her with a smirk. Then, she set her eyes towards Chase and super sped towards him.

Seeing this, Bree pulled her brother out of the way as quickly, causing Echo to almost crash against a wall. "Don't even try," she spat towards Echo as the girl turned around to face them.

"So," Fielder continued, "you're just the kind of man who hides behind a woman, then."

Fed up with the insulting talk, Adam joined his siblings, his nervousness now replaced with anger. "No," he said. "My brother's just the kind of man you're never going to be."

"What, a coward? A wimp?"

"No. A good man. And a free one at that."

Fielder grinned wickedly, amused.

Darwin, on the other hand, smirked. He held up his hand to the side then fired a bolt of electricity towards the door. The burst of energy activated something in the walls. It caused the cement to swallow up the exit, trapping all six inside the spacious room effectively. "Well, maybe we can hold off on the 'not in captivity' part for now," he said. Then, he held up his hand towards them as another bolt of electricity crackled around his arm down through his fingers.

Before he could fire it, Adam stepped in front of his siblings and gathered enough energy before detonating a blast wave.

However, Fielder blocked it by holding out his hands. Adam, Bree and Chase watched in horror as the earthshaking ripple of energy seeped into them like water to a dry sponge. It was done quickly, cleanly, and almost effortlessly.

Fielder grinned. "Thanks for the boost, Subject A. I needed that power up," he said, shaking off his hands at the side as the last of the wave was absorbed somewhere in his arms. He sighed contentedly. "Now, where were we?"

As Darwin, Echo and Fielder slowly advanced towards them with similar dark, primal glint in their eyes, Adam, Bree and Chase began to realize that they may not succeed this mission. They might just fail their parents, and they may just not see their brother like they had wanted to.

Worse yet, they may never come back home.

* * *

Leo's jaws locked in frustration when the screen went blank for the eighth time. He tried different combinations that would have to do with the project, but none of them worked. He racked his mind for any ideas, any information at all regarding his step-uncle that could help him figure out the key to this lock, but he didn't come across anything. The truth of the matter was that he didn't know much about Douglas. His stepfather never talked much about him, which wasn't surprising considering the kind of person Douglas was. Though under normal circumstances that wouldn't have been a problem, at this moment Leo wished he knew more.

If there was one thing he had always known about passwords, it was that they would always have some kind of connection to the person who created them. It was always going to be something familiar.

When the cursor came back again, Leo frowned as he thought deeper. _Anything connected to Douglas… _He tried to remember the address of the house his step-uncle and Marcus used to live in. It was not a bad place to start, considering how all of this seemed to have started from the events that happened there. _6-3-3-4-A-L-T-A, _he typed.

The characters vanished. The screen went blank.

Leo sighed. _So, not their old address either, _he thought.

He stared on the screen as he waited, all the while pondering over the possibility of a certain name being the answer to this. Gradually, his mind drifted away, and he was left gazing into the emptiness in front of him. The glass on the screen reflected the little light streaming into the room. Looking at the white blurs sitting like wide, unmoving clouds, he began to daydream of the world outside. He wondered where his family was.

The more he stared into the reflection, though, the more he noticed a slow movement behind him. A shadow darkened the lights suddenly, warning him of an oncoming danger.

Leo spun out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit by the handheld device Douglas swung towards him. He stared at him in terror, his heart hammering wildly in adrenaline as he backed away.

Douglas grinned. "Ah, I knew I waited too long," he said.

Leo alertly kept their distance as his step-uncle leisurely walked towards him. He glanced down at the device. It was black, metallic. It looked like a baton, only heavier and shorter. From the button that rested under Douglas' thumb, however, it appeared that the device didn't rely on the weight to do its intended job. Though he didn't know exactly what it would do, he knew its ultimate purpose: to subdue him and keep him a captive.

"See, what your stepdad doesn't understand, Leo, is that these?" Douglas gestured to the system with the device before shaking his head. "These do not mean anything to me. They can lock me out as many times as they want. All I'll do is replace them and start over again. What's important is that chip wired in you. It's one of a kind. It's the key to everything I've ever worked for." He smiled. "Do you see now why I can't just let you go?"

With quick glimpses on his surroundings, Leo planned an escape. He calculated the distance and the effort he would have to put forward into getting out of there. It was going to be difficult, especially now that Douglas had him nearly backed into a corner. He could make a break for the door, but there wouldn't be enough comfortable space between the two of them if he did that. One swift move from Douglas would have the device hitting him.

Douglas quickly moved forward, almost catching Leo by surprise. Leo ducked just in time, stepping around his step-uncle hurriedly to get out of his reach. He was backing away towards the door just as Douglas was spinning around to face him. There was a good space between them at first, but then one of the discarded devices lying around tripped him, causing him to clumsily fall backwards.

He sat up quickly and tried to get back on his feet, but he found that his thoughts worked faster than his body could. Standing up proved difficult because he couldn't find the right footing. All he could do to get away was to continually push his right hand against the floor so he could move back.

His step-nephew's pitiful attempt amused Douglas. He chuckled. "No more place to run," he said.

Leo desperately looked around him for anything to defend himself. Then, underneath the desk, he saw it.

When Douglas clicked on the device on his hand and raised it up, Leo snatched the tranquilizer from its hiding place then pulled on it. Two small syringes whipped across the empty air and hit Douglas on the shoulders. Time seemed to slow down. Leo watched wide-eyed as Douglas dropped his device, his hand traveling instead to where he had been hit. The rogue inventor looked surprised when he saw that the same syringes he used on Leo six months ago were now pinned on him.

In a final attempt, Douglas took a step forward, but the strong chemicals that coursed through his veins in a rapid pace inundated him to the point that he lost consciousness. He fell to the floor with a loud thud, leaving Leo to stare.

After snapping out the disbelief that stunned him, Leo pulled himself up to his feet. He couldn't seem to take his eyes away from what lied in front of him. His captor, down, now as helpless as he had been. The irony of everything was incomprehensible. Six months ago, it had been the opposite: Douglas had the tranquilizer, and he was the one knocked out.

Now…Now…

The terror and surprise he felt changed into one of anger. All the things his family suffered, all the things he had to endure, wouldn't have existed if not for the man that now lay fallen in front of him. "I hope you're not allergic to that," Leo said after he remembered one of the things his step-uncle said to him when he first woke up in the simulation chamber.

He then turned his attention back to the computer. Recalling what Douglas had said earlier, he now knew that the block was not from this end but from his stepfather's. More than likely, it was Torrance who had corrupted the system to the point of uselessness. To their opponents, at least, because he knew that she was not just going to waste good resources, especially ones that could help them.

He concluded that trying to figure out the password would be harder with Torrance setting it. It was probably going to be easier if he just typed a message to let her know it was him controlling the computers there now.

Hoping that she was monitoring what was being entered in, Leo began.

* * *

Donald and Torrance watched the video feed anxiously. They had to resort into accessing all the recordings in the facility a few minutes ago to find Adam, Bree and Chase since the signal to their com sets suddenly went offline. Now, they witnessed as the three battled for their lives against Douglas' newest creations, all of whom had capabilities that seemed to surpass the ones that they had.

Seeing that made Donald's heart sink. At the same time, it also kicked his mind into high gear, into thinking of solutions to get his children out of that situation. "Anything yet on the other kids' chips?" he asked as he hurried back to his station at the cyber desk.

"No. Your brother has encrypted that program really well," Torrance said as she continued to work. With her features wrinkled in determination, she continued to decrypt the program. It had been a bad idea to look at the video feed because now she couldn't shake off the image of Adam, Bree and Chase struggling to stay afloat. It made her nervous for them, and she knew that that would only cloud her thinking.

_Focus. You have to stay focused. _

When she came across another level of decryption, she decided to check the passwords Douglas had been entering in an attempt to get back in. It was a shot in the dark, but there might just be the chance that their opponent could have thoughtlessly given them the key to the program, inevitably allowing her to tap into Darwin, Echo and Fielder's chips. She could try those out; something might click.

Really, at this desperate point, she was willing to try anything.

On the mission specialist desk, she opened one of the windows she minimized earlier to see the latest passwords that had come in. She skimmed through the list, starting from the one on top. Starting with the first, she entered them into her laptop, but the lock on the program remained. She tried two more, but soon after it became evident that what she did only caused the security to tighten, effectively pushing her back on the progress that she already made.

Torrance refused to feel frustrated. Frustration was worse than nervousness and perhaps even panic. So, just to make sure, she decided to try one more from the list before she moved on to other means.

She noticed that there was a shift in the pattern of the passwords entered. The first seven seemed characteristic of a hacker. They were complex, made up of characters that were almost nonsensical. The next set appeared clumsy. A good portion of it had a direct association with the project, the last one being what seemed like an address. It almost didn't seem like it was Douglas typing them.

The last set, though, were messages, and it clued her in to what may have happened.

_TORRANCE_

_IT. S . LEO_

_NEED…._

_ACCESS.._

Torrance realized that it could be a trap. Douglas may just be luring them into connecting with his computer so he could vie for control again.

Still, a gut feeling was telling her that it may just be Leo.

Almost as an answer to her doubts, another set came in soon after she resumed the decryption work.

_CHELSEA._

_HEATHER._

_BLUESWAN_

A cold sensation rushed through her. Chelsea had been the name Leo had introduced her with when they were in Delaware. Heather was the name he had said she looked like while they were in New York. Blue Swan was a moniker he had given her when they first met. She remembered him mentioning it during one of their conversations.

Blue eyes, white dress.

Her at the masquerade ball.

"I can't get through," Donald said with a sigh as he leaned on the cyber desk. "What about you? Got anything?"

Though it was risky, Torrance decided to connect to the computer where the passwords had been entered in. After a few clicks and a few seconds, she was able to go in.

When his image appeared on the screen, Torrance stared. She felt a strong tug on her heart when she saw his condition. It was obvious that he had been neglected. Even though it was only the glow of the computer illuminating his face, she could see smears of dried blood on his face. Just the thought of how that came about turned her stomach.

Still, what counted the most was the large grin on his face, which emerged as soon as he saw her. _"Tor,"_ he said. _"You got my message."_

"Torrance?" Donald called to her, a light frown on his face after having recognized the voice of his son.

Seeing this, Torrance pulled the video up on a split screen.

When he saw his father, Leo's smile increased in warmth. _"Hi, Big D,"_ he said.

Donald could only stare.

Understanding the conflict of emotions tumbling through Donald, Torrance spoke instead. "Where is Douglas Davenport?" she asked.

The excited expression on Leo's face waned into nothing. He glanced at the floor beside him before answering, _"Out. He's not going to be a problem for a few hours."_ He sighed. _"Look. We can't stay here for long. Do you mind giving me some access on this side so I can help out?"_

Torrance nodded. "I'm also sending you the feed of where your siblings and subjects D to F are," she said. "I'm currently trying to unlock the program that would let me tap into the subjects' chips, but I found an override program that may just make this all the easier. Will you be capable of unlocking that from your side?"

For some reason, Leo's expression hardened, as if a feeling of dread overcame him. _"Hold off on that override program for now,"_ he said, almost pleadingly. _"What I can try is to help you with that direct access."_

Though his response made her suspicious, Torrance just nodded.

Leo grinned. _"Let's tag-team it. Just like old times."_

Torrance smiled in agreement.

Still, even after they began, she couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something significant Leo was hiding from her.

* * *

Bree reeled back to avoid getting hit by the laser Darwin shot towards her feet. He had recently started to make it a point to aim his every attack downwards, and she knew he was doing it to disable her. Her ability to move faster than him was an advantage that she had, and it was clear he wanted to get that out of the way to make it easier for him.

Since fighting against the person who was their exact replica when it came to abilities and approach and succeeding was impossible, she and her two brothers had decided to pick an opponent who they think they could best. Bree had taken on Darwin since his abilities depended much on accurate aiming, and the stealth she had mastered over the years made his moves harder to execute. Chase had picked Echo, because although she was fast, his molecular kinesis was able to immobilize her.

Adam had decided to go against Fielder. He had learned from his past mistake of using his blast wave ability against him, so he tried to stick to more physical counterattacks. However, after getting hit a few times, Fielder seemed to have learned Adam's moves quickly. Now, he was avoiding and even striking the older boy effortlessly.

Adam didn't give up, but it was obvious that he was getting tired and was running out of ideas on how to subdue his enemy.

Bree spun out of the way as Darwin lunged forward, his hand glowing with electricity as he reached out to her. She grabbed onto his upper arm then quickly dispensed the freezing element that had been building up in her hands.

Darwin screamed as he collapsed to the floor. He clutched onto his left shoulder as ice began to spread downwards from it. In retaliation, he looked up at Bree, and then he fired a laser.

Bree dodged it effectively.

The blast that missed her overshot towards the direction where Echo was running towards to. It missed her, but the shock from the sudden attack surprised her that she missed her target, who had been Chase.

Seeing what had happened to his older siblings, Fielder soon vanished from his spot, black mist replacing him from where he used to be, nearly missing Adam's tackle. He reappeared beside Darwin then placed his hand on where the ice was spreading. Like with the blast wave, he absorbed the ice, too. When it had all vanished, he disappeared again – this time taking his brother with him.

Adam was making his way to them but stopped on his tracks when they did. His brows wrinkled as he and Bree looked at each other.

Bree's eyes widened when the dark mist burst some distance behind Adam. She gasped before yelling, "Adam, watch out!"

Adam only had time to turn around before Fielder shot a blast of ice to his feet. It crawled up to his knees gradually, but quickly, and it cemented him in place.

Darwin was going to shoot a bolt of electricity towards him, too, but Chase used his molecular kinesis to redirect his aim. He was intending to have the bolt shoot towards an empty spot, but because Echo tackled him, his hand caused it to hit near where Bree stood.

Bree was able to move out.

However, Echo's attack catapulted Chase into a wall, the impact knocking the breath out of his lungs.

"Chase!" Adam yelled as he struggled out of the ice.

While Adam used his laser vision to remove what anchored him down, Bree super sped to where Chase was, just as Echo was drawing closer to him. She grabbed her younger brother, and then brought him back to the side of the room where she and Adam were.

Chase groaned as Bree helped him up to his feet. "I'm okay, I'm okay," he told her under his breath as he caught sight of the worried look she directed to him.

"We need to get out of here," Bree told him quietly, an undercurrent of fear running through her voice.

Chase understood why. "Do you have any ideas?" he asked.

Bree nodded.

"Alright. Adam and I will follow your lead," Chase said before looking at Echo then walking towards her.

"Chase?"

Chase had only gone a few paces when Bree called to him, her voice louder and her tone lightly panicked. Turning around, he saw his sister standing still in place, her stature rigid and tense.

"I…I can't move," Bree said.

Chase frowned. When his sister looked at their opponents, he looked at them, too. He saw an exhausted expression on Echo's features. Darwin had a smirk on his face. Fielder was slightly smiling at Bree. Looking around, Chase saw that Adam had his head down, still focused on the half-melted ice that clung to his feet despite the absence of laser from his eyes.

His older brother was also cemented in place.

"What did you do to them?" Chase asked Fielder. He was going back towards Adam and Bree when a strong whir went through his body. He willed his muscles to keep moving but every part of him, except his eyes and his mouth, disobeyed. He tried to do something, _anything_, again and again, but nothing happened.

It was as if he became a stranger in his own body.

"Suspended them, just like I'm doing with you," Fielder answered.

"How did – How are you doing this?"

"It's not like you don't know, Subject C," Fielder said. "Like you, I have an override app, too. The only difference between us is that you can't control me, but I can control you."

A dreadful feeling washed over Chase, and for a second he was glad that his back was turned against Darwin, Echo and Fielder. He didn't know how much of that fear showed through his eyes. From what he could see, Adam was starting to realize that it was over for them. There were no moves left, and the only thing he could do now was to accept what was coming their way as bravely as possible.

Chase's heart sank, because he arrived at the same conclusion, too.

Bree knew what her brothers were thinking, and it terrified her more. Out of the three of them, she was the only one who could see everything that was happening. She didn't want to be scared, but the thought of the people she loved dying as she watched on had her shaking inside.

Fielder took a few steps forward. "The thing is, that's not the best part," he said. He lifted up his arms in the same manner as Adam would when he's about to set off a blast wave. "What's fun is what I can do with what I've been collecting," he said as the once dormant energy intensified and crackled in them.

* * *

"Tor, I'm not getting anything from this side," Leo said as he stared at the blocked program on the screen.

_"Neither am I," _Torrance said, evidently as equally nervous as he was.

Leo watched the video feed anxiously. He had noticed it when it first happened. Adam's lasers went off, but he didn't move afterwards. Then, not long after that, Bree stopped mid-pace, her eyes widening when she realized that her will over her body had been taken away from her.

His older siblings were stuck like statues, stuck like perfect targets for whatever Darwin, Echo and Fielder have planned.

Leo stared intently at Fielder. For what seemed to be the sixth time after he had seen him going against his siblings, he tried to connect to him. He told him to stop, to leave his older siblings alone, to let them go. He tried so hard to keep his mind only on him despite the worry and fear he felt, but like the first few times, nothing happened.

Fielder didn't listen.

However, it didn't seem like Darwin, Echo and Fielder were ignoring him on purpose. If they had, he would have at least read some sort of recognition in their faces before they refuse his pleas, but he didn't. They were continuing on the task that Douglas had given them as if they couldn't hear him at all.

It was as if their ears were blocked, and they only have each other and their thoughts to listen to.

"Have you guys been able to speak with Adam, Bree or Chase?" Leo asked Torrance as he accessed the map of the facility to determine which room the other six were in. On a separate window, he opened up the blue print to check on a suspicion.

_"No. Their com sets went offline. It must have been after they went inside that room." _

Leo stared at the confirmation in front of him. He knew it. He hadn't been able to communicate with Darwin, Echo and Fielder because the room they had trapped his siblings in blocked any incoming signals.

Leo looked up to tell Torrance what he had discovered when he heard Fielder say, _"It's not like you don't know, Subject C. Like you, I have an override app, too. The only difference between us is that you can't control me, but I can control you."_ _He's going to finish them off. _"Unlock all the doors, Torrance," he said, his eyes mapping out the two short turns and the hall he had to go through to arrive at that room from the facility's map.

_"What?"_

"Unlock all the doors!"

Leo sped off. The pressure on his legs and his knees pained him very much, and the sudden exertion of that much energy made his head feel like it was floating. He could feel gravity tugging strongly at every fiber of him, telling him to surrender. He knew that he was going slower and was half-limping, half-running in a very crooked pace.

Nonetheless, he kept his eyes at the farthest door when he reached the hall despite the funny feeling expanding in his insides. He was the only one who could stop Darwin, Echo and Fielder, he knew, and he couldn't just give up.

His first attempt to push the heavy door open when he finally came upon it was unsuccessful. Again, he tried, but he put more force into it.

He stumbled inside the room with barely enough time. "Fielder, stop!" he yelled as he caught sight of Fielder and the energy steadily gathering in his arms. He ran in from behind him when he saw that he couldn't hear him over the noise then stood in the direct path where he was aiming the destructive energy.

However the blast went off before he could do anything else. The massive ripple surged through the room, knocking Adam, Bree and Chase out. Since he bore much of the brunt, Leo was sent flying off towards the opposite wall. He felt something inside of him break, and a few more when he landed to the ground.

He took in a breath.

Then, there was darkness.

* * *

_to be continued._


	21. Twenty-One

_Happy Wednesday, everybody!_

_First off, I just want to thank RandomWaffle5505, Smile-Like-An-Idiot, Glee Clue Rock 1251, Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, AlienGhostWizard14, Mickey12Boo, daphrose, Jillie chan, and xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx for the reviews! I know I still owe some of you replies, but I figured the best one I could give is an update. ;)_

_Second, here's the reason why I haven't been updating as frequently as before: we moved to a different house. The past one and a half months had been filled with packing and cleaning. Add a big family reunion and a big project to that, and there's the recipe for lateness. _

_Lastly, we're an hour and a half away from a new episode! I'm so excited! _

_I hope everybody enjoy this chapter! Feel free to drop me a line later regarding the one-hour special if you'd like. :)_

* * *

_Twenty-One. _

A cloak of silence covered the household that early Friday morning. It was much different from the one that had suffocated their home for a little more than half a year, but Donald was not entirely sure if it was much better. As he stood by the door outside his stepson's room, watching Tasha as she sat on Leo's bed and held her son's hand as he slept, he came to an honest conclusion that he still didn't know how to feel about this.

He was glad – _extremely_ glad, really – that all of their children were finally home, especially their youngest. Watching the four of them get hurt yesterday nearly stopped his heart. Having no way to check on them to make sure if they were still alive drove him into panic. He was only able to calm down after Torrance assured him that she had a contact who could come to the island and retrieve his children. They were even able to get Douglas (it gave him a deep sense of satisfaction to know that his brother would be waking up in jail) and the other three, who had, for some reason, all shut down after that last attack.

However, along with the happiness, there was also the budding seed of hurt. There were many questions he wanted to ask, far too many whys that needed an answer, but Donald knew that it would be some time yet before he could ask. His stepson was in a poor physical state, and it was already evident when he saw him the first time through that video feed, but that magnified blast wave from the third subject made it worse. He and Bree were the closest to the line of impact, and it did some damage. Bree would need about a day or two to fully recover.

In his already horrid condition, he imagined Leo would take longer.

He didn't mind waiting. It was going to be a big conversation, and he thought it best if both of them had a clear mind when they approach it. As it was, though the dust had settled, his mind was still being pulled in many different directions. There were some things that he needed to prepare his family and himself for in the future, like how they would proceed with Douglas and what they would do with his newest inventions who were now in their possession. He also had some things to tend to at the present, like the well-being of everyone in his family and the apparently growing intrigue throughout the country because of people seeing someone with abilities rescue those firefighters from that wildfire during that live news feed in Virginia.

Donald wanted as less distraction for both of them as possible before they sort what happened in the past because he had a feeling that, like them, Leo had suffered, too.

"Mr. Davenport?"

Donald looked back, mildly surprised, and found Adam and Chase standing behind him. "Chase," he said. "Is…is everything okay?"

Chase nodded. "Everything's fine."

"Is Bree doing better?"

"A little. Dr. Evans said she's improving. He's down there with her and Torrance."

Donald nodded. "Good. Good," he said. He gazed at his sons then, and as he did he felt both relief and pity. He was glad that they were okay, but seeing the cuts and bruises on their arms and on their faces and the brace and the sling steadying the fractures they sustained wrung his heart painfully. It was difficult to see them that way. It always was, anyways, whenever they were hurt. Instead of dwelling on these thoughts, though, he just asked, "How about you two? Are you okay?"

"Still a little sore, but I'm alright," Chase said with a weak but consoling smile.

Adam didn't say anything. Instead, he just stared inside the room, particularly at his brother. "Are we sure that that's Leo?" he asked. "That's not the shape shifter, is it?"

"No, he's not. Dr. Evans and I checked, and the DNA matched. That's really your brother," Donald said.

Again, Adam said nothing.

"Dr. Evans said you found the chip?" Chase asked.

Donald silently took a breath as the strong wave of anger he felt against his brother earlier rushed back to him again. "Yeah," he answered.

"Were you able to take it out?"

Donald shook his head. "Douglas knew what he was doing. He hardwired that chip inside him."

"Hardwired?"

"It's either Leo served a purpose, or he didn't."

Adam and Chase both looked at their father with a frown, concerned by what he was leaving out. "And what if he didn't?" Chase prompted.

Lowering down his voice so his wife wouldn't hear them, Donald responded, "That would be it for him. Douglas wound the wires around important veins. He was counting on someone, whoever would rescue Leo, to make the mistake of pulling them out. He was going to have others do his dirty work for him."

Chase stared at his father, sickened and puzzled and enraged by the clear picture being painted for them. "What happened to Douglas?" he asked, deeply troubled by the mentality of his uncle. "How could he have turned out like this?"

Donald remembered, then, those early mornings when he and Douglas were little, when they would play in the living room and how his younger brother would always joyfully share his toys with him even if they were new and very dear to him. Douglas was such a happy, affectionate and thoughtful sibling. Honestly, at times, Donald wondered if that person vanished because of something he had done.

To answer Chase, and maybe even himself, Donald just said, "I don't know."

The three of them fell into silence, watching Tasha and Leo absently. Donald remained contemplative about his younger brother. He realized then that even if he was very upset over what Douglas had done to his family, he still felt a seedling of pity for him. He was still his brother, and Donald knew that he was much capable of being more than what he had ended up to be.

Meanwhile, Chase gradually came to the conclusion that he was drawing close to the doorstep of closure. Everything was still in disorder, but they were not too far from where they needed to be. He was just happy that his family was there with him and that they were safe. Their home was a home again, and that was all he wanted.

Adam, on the other hand, didn't know what to feel. Being happy about them coming home alive was a given, but at the moment, his focus fell on the way Tasha regarded Leo. Her back was turned on them, but he could imagine a smile on her face. How she felt was evident through the way she remained by his side and tended to him. It was only natural, he knew; her child had just come back to them after being presumed dead for a long time, after all.

However, for some reason, all he could think about were those months when his stepmother directed that type of affection towards the three of them. He felt like a bad person thinking this way. His youngest brother had been through so much, and here he was envying the love that he more than likely missed out on for months. He was trying his hardest not to be jealous, but seeing them, he couldn't help it.

Breathing out slowly, Adam faked a chipper attitude. "Welp, I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry," he said. "If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen." Then, he turned on his heels to head to his destination.

Bewildered, Chase looked at his father.

It only took Donald one quick look at his oldest to understand. "Something's bothering him," he said. "Go talk to him."

Chase nodded then did what he was told.

When he came into the kitchen, he found Adam taking out the bread then a jar of jam from the fridge singlehandedly.

Adam looked at him before closing the fridge door. "Oh. You hungry, too?" he asked as he took out a butter knife from one of the drawers.

Chase lightly shook his head. "No," he answered, watching his older brother closely as he prepared his food.

"Okay. What's up?"

"I should be the one asking you that question," Chase said. "You look like you got something on your mind."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Ha ha. Very funny."

"You know what I meant," Chase said. His brows wrinkled. "Are you okay?"

A smirk came to Adam's mouth as he opened his mouth to answer.

Chase held up a hand. "Spare me the sarcasm, Adam," he said. "Don't you think we're both old enough to avoid this part where we dance around the issue?"

As Adam thought about it, the smirk on his face diminished into nothing. He smiled sadly. "When did you get to be so grown?" he asked.

"Adam…"

Adam sighed. "I just – I just remembered something, that's all. It's nothing big, really."

"Well, it must be. It's enough to bother you," Chase pointed out.

Adam debated at first whether he should tell him. Then, when he had decided, he said, "I really liked the idea of having a mom, you know? It was nice to have someone welcome me back home with food and call me sweetheart and ask me about my day. It was nice having someone just be there for me, for us."

Chase nodded, because he understood. He smiled. "Tasha _was_ a great mom," he agreed.

"I mean, Mr. Davenport is a good dad to us," Adam added. "He gives us food to eat and clothes to wear and a place to stay. He also teaches us to be good people. It's just that…it's different when you also have a mom. It's just more complete."

"And you're thinking that, since Leo's back, we won't have Tasha anymore."

Adam smiled sheepishly but also sadly. "Of all the dumb things I've thought about, huh?"

"No, no, it's—" Chase took a breath and released it. "It's not dumb."

"It's still selfish, though," Adam said.

Chase thought about it. "Is it really selfish for us to want both a dad and a mom?" he asked no one in particular.

Adam shrugged. "All I know is that I don't want it under the same condition we had it. I want all six of us, together, like what we are right now," he said. "But I don't know if we can have both. A dad, a mom, and all four of us? Maybe there's just not enough room, Chase. At least not for the three of us."

"Why not?"

Adam and Chase looked to the source of the voice and found Tasha standing by the walkway.

"Why wouldn't there be enough room for you?" Tasha asked kindly.

Adam looked away guiltily.

Chase did, too, at first, but he was more inclined to address her. However, he found it hard to do so, so he looked to Adam for help.

Though still embarrassed, Adam muttered, "Sorry, Tasha. I…I didn't mean for you to hear that."

Instead of tackling the issue, Tasha decided to divert the conversation to the reason of her following them. "While the three of you were on the mission, I stayed here upstairs, just waiting. Your father thought that it could get too much for me to get involved in, and I agreed. I guess that's the reason why I never really got involved in the things you do. I was scared of what I would see," she said. She drew closer to them. "But I was so worried when you were away, and when they brought you back, I realized that I had a good reason to. Donald didn't want to tell me what really happened – but it's not like he could. He was so busy trying to save all of you. So Torrance told me everything, while we were waiting. She told me how you risked your lives."

The embarrassment and guilt weighing down on Adam and Chase vanished when they heard their mother sniffling. Looking up, they saw her wiping tears from her face. "I just wanted to say thank you. You brought my baby back home. He's here with me, with us, because of all of you," Tasha said. "There are…no words to explain how much it hurts for a parent to lose their child. But now he's back. Right now, I have all of these words I want to say, but I'm having a hard time to." She sobbed, her face wet with tears, worn down with exhaustion but glowing warmly with appreciation. "I am indebted to you, to all three of you, for this. I guess that's the sum of what I want to say," she finished out.

"You don't owe us anything, Tasha," Chase said empathetically. "Leo's our brother. There wouldn't have been anything we wouldn't do to get him back."

"Yeah," Adam agreed, regarding her worriedly.

Tasha sniffled. "But I don't want you to think for one second that I'd rather have him over the three of you, that I wouldn't have cared what happened to you as long as he's with me. That's not how a mother thinks," she said. She looked at them. "It touched my heart to see how far you were willing to go, but it also hurts me to see you like this. It makes me angry that someone would even think of doing something like this to you. I always want you safe."

After a pause, she said, "I can't promise you that things will be the same as they were these past six months, but what I can promise you is that I will try my best to love you as my own. You're my children, all four of you. There will always be room."

Adam only stared at her as her promise sunk in. Then, he came forward and embraced her warmly, letting her know that he appreciated the love and the future she offered of having a mother there for them, not just for himself, but for his two younger siblings, too. Tasha gathered him into her arms, taking Chase in, too, when he stepped forward to let her know that he, too, was grateful to be told that they belonged and would now be complete.

* * *

_to be continued._


	22. Twenty-Two

_Many thanks to LabGirl2001, Glee Clue Rock 1251, tiff. n. b36, AlienGhostWizard14, Lady Cougar-Trombone, daphrose, and Jillie chan for the reviews! Your feedbacks were (and will always be) much appreciated!_

_One of my favorite chapters, despite being short in comparison. :)_

* * *

_Twenty-Two._

Leo felt two things when he came to: tired and safe. The feelings of exhaustion, he had gotten used to. A dense fog was still slowly lifting from his brain, but he was aware enough to acknowledge that this heaviness anchoring every inch of him was not unusual. Not as of late, at least. In fact, though his memory was still limited by the sleepiness he was trying to break off from, he knew that it had been a long time since he woke up feeling fine.

Safety was something new. He was suspicious of it at first. He vaguely remembers an instance where he woke up and everything was good then it all ended up being a simulation. He wasn't sure if this one was, too. Looking around, he saw that he was in his old room, the one that his stepfather had given to him when he and his mother moved in. It had been a while since he had been there, but everything appeared to be where they were since the last time he saw it. There were a few things that didn't seem to belong, like the glass of water, a bottle of what looked to be pain medicine, two boxes of gauze and some gauze pads, but other than that, all looked the same.

After the gauze caught his attention again, he was impelled to look down on his wrist. It surprised him to see that the dressing around the site of incision was new and clean. Investigating further, he found that his clothing was different, too. The dark jeans and shirt he had been wearing since the break-in at Virginia had been replaced by pajamas and a gray shirt he didn't remember owning. The brace around his torso caught his attention, too.

All of these summed up to one thought: he was actually being taken care of.

It made him somewhat all the warier. He had learned that it was not in his best interest to buy into things that were too good. Good situations in the simulations always turned out to have an ugly reality behind them, and they only disappointed him.

However, a part of him also told him that everything was different this time. There was nothing he had to worry about. He was really where he seemed to be. This was neither a dream nor a nightmare he would wake up from.

He was startled from his thoughts when the door opened. He stared as his mother stepped in then paused when she saw he was awake. She stared back at him. At first, he couldn't clearly tell how she felt seeing him. There was a blank expression on her face, as if she didn't know what to feel, which, ironically, was how he felt.

Her eyes glowed with what he could only assume as joy – but only for a moment. Her happiness borne from seeing him quickly changed into anger and disappointment. Leo could tell from the minor, almost invisible shifts in her face that she was unhappy.

The anger was something he could bear. It was the disappointment that really pressed upon him the gravity of what he had done.

It only worsened when he heard it in her voice. "How are you feeling?" she asked stoically as she continued towards him.

"Still hurting, but – this is much better than the past…few days," he answered, still not quite knowing how long he'd been in captivity.

Tasha picked up the boxes of gauze and the pads then also took out a first aid kit from a drawer. She sat down next to him. "I'll tell Donald that you're awake once I finish taking off that wrap around your wrist."

He moved his left hand towards her as she took out the materials she needed. He watched her closely while she worked on the bandages, gauging whether he had been right in thinking that she was upset. After a few seconds of silence and after seeing her refusal to look back at him, he concluded in dismay that he was. "Mom—"

"No, Leo. Not right now. This is the worst time, and—" Tasha shook her head, "I don't think either of us is ready to talk about this."

Though he was inclined to talk more, Leo remained silent.

"Are you hungry?" Tasha asked.

Leo thought about it. After sensing the definite emptiness in his stomach, he nodded. "I'm thirsty, too," he said.

Tasha got up then picked up the glass of water from the top of the drawer to give it to him.

After drinking up all that was in the glass (it was a shame how room temperature water lifted his mood up so much), Leo asked, "Where's everybody?"

"Your stepfather is in the lab with Dr. Evans. They're making sure Bree's really out of the danger zone before they give her the clear to go back to normal schedule."

Leo frowned worriedly. "Bree? What happened to her?"

A flicker of discomfort quickly flashed through his mother's face. "You'd have to ask your stepdad. I stayed away while the mission was going on," she said. She continued, "Chase and Torrance are in the lab, too. They're trying to dig through the files that were recovered. Adam's outside by the pool, explaining to Ayanna what happened."

"What happened?" Leo repeated, surprised.

Tasha nodded. "Ayanna's known everything for two months now. She knows Adam is bionic," she said.

Leo tried to come up with a response but failed to. Perhaps he could ask how that came to be later on. Instead, his mind took him to another concern, to something more worrisome. "What about Douglas? Where is he?"

"Locked up in a faraway place, where he could never hurt you."

Leo was able to get a glimpse of the cut made on his left wrist before it was sealed with a new, smaller bandage. It was still flushed red, but it was obviously healing well. It was comforting, the fact that the man who gave him that was no longer looming close by. "You know, I saw Dad while I was on the island," he said as he thought about it.

Tasha stopped. She looked at him. "You saw your dad?" she asked.

Leo nodded. "I saw Big D, too, but mostly him," he said. He wanted to tell his mother everything – how he looked like, what they talked about, the simulations, what his father was – but he understood that it wasn't the proper time. He didn't want to terrify her or break her heart more, so maybe he could save all of the details for later. With a smile, he decided to just tell her of one instance with Jason that he could remember. "There was this one simulation where we were still at the old house, you and me and Dad. I was graduating high school that day. We were so happy. You and Dad were proud of me," he said. Looking into her eyes contritely, he said, "I'm so sorry I hurt you, Mom."

Tasha smiled a small, bitter smile. "Hurt? That's an understatement," she said. Once she realized she was getting upset, she deflected the conversation. "Like I said, this is not the right time, but one thing that you need to understand right now is that this? This should never, ever happen again. _Never, _Leo, you hear me? You won't be able to fully understand what your stepfather and I went through these past few months until you have your own kids, but let me make this clear: I don't bury you, _you_ bury _me. _As your parent, I have that right. Do you understand that?"

Leo nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

Tasha stared at him for a moment before standing up. "I'll go get Donald. I'll be back with your lunch after they're done," she said. Then, she headed out the door.

When she was halfway out, Leo called to her. "Mom?"

Tasha paused then looked back.

"I missed you," Leo said.

His mother only stared at him. It didn't seem like she would respond at first. Then, "There was never a moment I didn't feel the same way about you." Afterwards, she left.

Leo eased back on his bed to wait. He never really thought he would come back home again, so conversations like these was not something he had planned ahead for. He didn't know if he was just being optimistic, but he thought that it went as he had expected. He had disappointed and pained his mother very much, and it actually surprised him that she didn't scold him for it.

Maybe she would, later on. Honestly, he would only be happy to accept it.

Now, he only had five more people to talk to, four of whom were his family and whom he owed an explanation and apologies to. Like with his mother, he didn't know what he would say or even how he should say it. All he knew was that he needed to brace himself for the consequences of his actions.

He didn't mind it, though. Everything was not playing out perfectly or ideally – and that told him that he was finally out of the dreams and simulations and was now living back in reality.

* * *

_to be continued._


	23. Twenty-Three

_Thank you to Glee Clue Rock 1251, LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, AlienGhostWizard14, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, and Jillie chan for the reviews! I'm sorry I haven't replied to your comments. I've been churning out the final chapters in the fastest way that I can. :)_

_If you see any inconsistencies or mistakes, please do kindly point them out. I'd be more than happy to correct them._

* * *

_Twenty-Three._

The next few hours were filled with more bad things, good things, and awkward situations. Like with his mother, the first conversation he had with his stepfather wasn't breezy. However, whereas his talk with the former was uncomfortable but still somewhat smooth, his talk with the latter was very strained and almost bizarre. After the curt greeting his stepfather gave him, which sounded slightly rehearsed and detached, as he and Dr. Evans came into the room, their exchange was immediately then constantly steered towards the topic of his health. All throughout, it was as if their relationship was that of a doctor and a patient instead of a father and a son.

At first, Leo wondered if it was just him being paranoid, but after several glances at Dr. Evans' direction during that 'check-up' and seeing the puzzled glances he was throwing his boss behind his back, he was convinced that he was right.

Still, even if that was how everything went from the moment his father came in to the moment he left, Leo didn't harbor any resentment. He was hurt, of course, but he had expected this long before it happened. The feeling didn't linger much, though. He knew his stepfather avoided anything personal only because it wasn't the right time for it yet, not because he didn't want to forgive him.

At least, he'd like to think that was the reason.

He didn't let his mind dwell on that for too long. Not that he could, anyways, because he was regularly consumed with sleeping and eating and taking medications and sleeping and more sleeping for long stretches of time.

He discovered recently that he liked waking up again. He had also grown very fond of things that he used to take for granted before. It was almost laughable how much he enjoyed the sight of bright lights illuminating his room, the fresh scent of newly laundered sheets and clothes, and the taste of great, home-cooked meals that he didn't have to suspect of being laced with poison or sedatives. What was funnier was that he actually started to have a tremendous liking towards his alarm clock.

He knew it was stupid, but after being unable to tell the date and the time for what seemed like an eternity, he couldn't help but form an attachment to an object that was reliable, to an object that relatively grounded him to reality.

Leo stared up at the ceiling as he thought of these and soon began to wonder when his siblings would come visit him. Since their arrival at the house almost two days ago (he was so glad he could tell when things happened now), he had only seen his parents. He had heard Adam and Chase walking by his room talking in low voices late last night, but that was as close as he got to them.

He would have called out to them – really, he would have – if exhaustion hadn't dragged him back into sleep. He did want to see his brothers, even if the three of them just ended up staring at each other with no words to say.

Leo was snapped out of his musings by the loud squeaking of his door. He scooted up to a sitting position, expecting someone from his family to come in, only to be rendered nearly speechless by the sight of the bespectacled girl who he hadn't seen for months. "Kerry…"

Kerry smiled as she closed the door behind her. "Hey, Loser," she said.

Leo could only stare at her, at that moment overwhelmed with the many words he wanted and needed to say.

Kerry chuckled as she walked over to him. Knowing the thoughts going through his head, she said as she sat at the foot of his bed, "Don't worry. You're not in any trouble."

Leo sat up straighter, still unsure of what to tell her. How he would approach Kerry was another thing he hadn't planned. It wasn't that he wanted to use his having to leave his family behind as a reason to cut ties with her. Actually, that never came into his mind. He just didn't really think that anyone outside of his immediate family would find out that he was still alive (his family wouldn't have either, if he hadn't been taken forcibly).

Mercifully, Kerry spoke instead. "You look like you just got into a serious battle with a Jaeger X," she joked as she looked over his injuries. "Like, the one that almost killed Soshi in volume seven."

"How did you know I'm here?" Leo asked.

The bright smile on Kerry's face slowly dimmed. "Well, for starters, I saw you in New York about a week ago."

"You were in New York?"

Kerry nodded. "My dad was driving down Central Park, and I saw you walking with your dog," she said. "Then a few days ago, Bree and that blonde girl came to the school with the same dog, asking me if he was who I saw with you. That's another way I found out that you're alive. Didn't take me long to figure out where you'd be."

Leo sighed. "Kerry, please, believe me – my family has nothing to do with what happened. They didn't know either."

A smile pulled at an edge of Kerry's lips. "I know," she said.

He looked at her remorsefully. "I'm really sorry. I didn't want to hurt anybody. I didn't want to hurt you," he said. "I can explain—"

"No," Kerry said, shaking her head softly. "Please, Leo. Don't. I'd really rather not know."

Leo gazed at her, feeling hollow inside as he saw the disappointment and hurt that the small smile on her face concealed.

Kerry decided to preoccupy herself with surveying his room. "So, the blonde is new," she remarked with feigned nonchalance. "She's not a family member, is she?"

Leo shook his head. "No."

"Okay. I guess that's good," she said. "And I figured she wasn't. With the exception of Bree, your family still doesn't like me. Blondie doesn't seem like she cares much for me either, but she did let me in the house and told me where you are when I asked."

Leo frowned. "She told you?"

Kerry shrugged. "It was part of my deal with Bree. I told her that in exchange of me helping out with identifying the dog, I need to see you when you get back home."

Leo nodded. Then, "I wouldn't take offense, with her not liking you. She's that way towards many people."

"Who?"

"The girl that let you in."

"Oh." Kerry mulled over a thought. "Does…she like you?"

"Yeah. I think so. We're really good friends."

Kerry said nothing.

For the first time in their conversation, Leo managed a smile. "In case you're wondering, she admires another guy," he told her. "She thinks I'm insufferable. An insufferable little brother."

Kerry grinned. "You _can_ be annoying," she said.

Leo chuckled. "You're not supposed to agree with her," he said.

"I don't know. She's always so formal that whatever she says always sounds official," Kerry said. "It's kind of like that one time when Sicky Vic wrote us a note telling us that he's going to postpone our meeting, with the fancy letterhead and the prim and proper writing. What did he say again?"

Leo grinned. "'To my fellow Manga Club members: Due to a viral illness that I have come in contact with, the monthly meeting is hereby postponed to the…third week of this month.' That's it, right? Yeah. 'Your cooperation and understanding are sincerely appreciated. Victor Heart.'"

Kerry laughed. "He made it seem like he contracted a deadly disease."

"Well, he did get the flu," Leo pointed out, amused by her reaction.

"We could've just told him that we meet up after school anyways without him. That would've saved him all the work," Kerry said. She looked at him. "Believe it or not, he still has no idea about that. Had no idea he had little rebellious manga-reading subordinates."

"Or does he?" Leo asked cryptically with a smirk. "Sicky Vic might look like a weakling to you, but the guy actually has some good connections. He has eyes and ears everywhere. He _is_ a club president."

Kerry frowned ponderously. "Huh. Really."

Leo's eyebrows rose. "I'm surprised you didn't know. I thought you told me you had a thing for him? Didn't you have some kind of a ploy to usurp the presidency away from him? Date him or something, then throw him to the dungeon with the rest of your victims?" he asked with a grin.

Kerry glared at him when she remembered their conversation from months ago. Then, she swatted at his foot.

"Ow!" Leo yelped as he slightly leaned away from her.

Kerry gasped and instinctively wanted to apologize. Then, she reconsidered it. "See? That's what you get for talking smart," she chided.

"But that's what you told me! How is this my fault?"

"I never said anything about a dungeon!"

Leo opened his mouth to reply but realized he had nothing to say.

Kerry crossed her arms, fuming. She sat in silence for a moment before she spoke again. "So what are you planning to do after you get better? Are you going back to school?" she asked, still upset but also curious.

Leo thought about it and again had to come to face with the fact that he had never planned for a future of returning home. Still, unlike the others, her question had a somewhat clearer answer. He shook his head.

Kerry understood. "If you have to leave again, tell me, okay? I want to get in touch," she said.

Leo smiled sadly. "You have no idea how many times I wanted to call you. Or text you," he said. "I just couldn't."

Kerry smiled back with the similar sad smile. "Well, if it makes you feel better, it was probably good that you didn't. It would've freaked me out to get a message from a dead person," she joked.

Leo chuckled, but it died down almost as soon as it came out. He stared at her. "I'm really sorry I hurt you, Kerry. I hurt a lot of people. I didn't want to do it, but I had to. It was…" _What right do you have to decide what's best for your mother, for me, for your siblings?, _the sound of his stepfather's question from a lifetime ago reverberated from the back of his head. He sighed. "I _thought_ it was for the best."

Kerry chose not to say anything about it. She only stood up from the bed. She smiled—and it hurt when, through it, he saw in full what he had done to her. "Just get better soon, alright?" she said.

Then, she did something surprising: she leaned over and gave him a gentle peck on the forehead.

Leo stared at her, speechless at first. As far as he remembered, she wasn't one to display that kind of affection. He wanted to ask her what it was for but knowing that that may just embarrass her, he just smirked lightly and said, "I think you're supposed to do that while the person is asleep, not when they're already awake."

Getting the reference, Kerry chuckled softly. "Well, you and I march to the beat of a different drum, Mr. Dooley," she said, her arms crossed protectively around her. "Neither of us lives in a fairytale world like the others."

Leo smiled at her. However, the longer he stared into her eyes, the more that happy expression diminished. "No happily ever after for us anymore, is there," he asked before it vanished completely.

Kerry looked down. She tried to put on a brave face but couldn't. "Happily ever after's are for children, Leo," she said. "We're too old for lies."

Leo was inclined to dissuade her from fully enacting on her apparent decision, to ask her to reconsider, but he knew it wouldn't be fair to her. He broke her trust. She had believed him to be something real she could hold onto amidst all the heartbreaks borne from what happened to her family, and he had recklessly left her without warning, telling her and everyone else one of the greatest lies he would ever tell in his life.

He wanted to apologize again, but he knew it wouldn't help anymore.

He had broken her heart, and this was the consequence.

Kerry glanced back at the door. "I probably should go. I don't want to get Bree and Blondie in trouble," she said before heading off. She paused after opening the door. "Leo?" she called to him. She smiled sincerely when he looked up. "I forgive you."

Leo nodded but said nothing else.

Soon, he was left staring at a closed door and listening to the silence of the room. He knew he should find some consolation in her forgiveness of him. Wasn't that what he wanted? The more he thought about it, though, the more he doubted it. What he really wanted was the people he loved by his side, for things to be okay again. But, as she had pointed out, things didn't work that way – at least things that were real.

He sighed then stared at his hands.

They were bruised, cut and empty.

His heart was too shattered to feel anything.

* * *

_to be continued._


	24. Twenty-Four

_Thank you to LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, Glee Clue Rock 1251, Jillie chan, xxWasabiWarriorAlertxx, AlienGhostWizard14, and Mickey12Boo for the reviews! _

_A year and a half ago, the last chapter of Trial and Error was posted. If you guys remembered, it featured Leo and Torrance as they began the hunt for Douglas and the solution to the problem they had uncovered. _

_Fast forward to today, here's chapter twenty-four. We're very close to the end of this whole trilogy, and I hope all of you would enjoy these remaining chapters. _

* * *

_Twenty-Four._

_ The room lied in relative darkness when he opened his eyes. There was a soft glow streaming in from the slightly ajar door, casting an enticing glow on a few objects around his room. He stirred a little. He must have fallen asleep while waiting for his mother._

_ Turning his head to the side of the bed, he checked the time. A light frown came to his face when he saw the electronic clock blinking 00:00 fervidly, almost as if warning him that something terrible had happened. It created a fearful feeling inside of him, but he stopped it immediately by reasoning that maybe someone had accidentally hit the clock while he was asleep, rendering it faulty._

_ He started to reach for the buttons to fix it but found that his arm was bound. Confused, he struggled against it, yanking it upwards in hopes of loosening it. It didn't work. He made a move to get up, to use his left hand to set himself free, but he discovered that his left arm was bound, too. Panic began to rise. He desperately pulled his arms towards whichever way to get some sort of mobility, but they were locked in so tightly that they held him down. _

_ "Mom," he called out the door. "Mom—Big D!"_

_ After glancing down at his restraints, his periphery alerted him of the figure standing next to his bed. _

_ He couldn't see his face. He could only make out small details from the person's shadow, like his height and build. He could tell that he was holding onto something. It looked like a pillow, from its size and shape._

_There wasn't much to go off from, but from the painful way his gut twisted, he could tell exactly who it was._

_The person stepped closer to him, the little light from outside revealing his features. "I'm afraid you can't continue anymore," Douglas said. "Leo."_

_He flinched and gasped for air as the pillow in Douglas' grip was pressed down on his face._

"Leo!"

Leo bolted up, only to be pushed back down by the pain that cut through his midsection. He groaned loudly, wincing as a pair of guiding hands eased him back.

Torrance's features wrinkled worriedly as she watched him. "Should I call your parents?" she asked.

Leo shook his head slowly, his breathing heavy as he tried to calm his nerves and ease the pain.

Torrance observed him closely as she sat back down on the swivel chair she had pulled up beside his bed. She glanced at Linux and found the dog keenly observing his master, appearing as troubled about him as she was. She still didn't like his current physical state, and it bothered her that he woke up as if someone was attacking him, but she decided that getting his family involved when he had told her not to would not be in his best interest.

And hers, too, admittedly. His parents, Kerry, and Adam had already come to talk to him. She needed time with him also.

Leo pulled himself up to a sitting position when he felt better. "Hey, Tor."

"What happened?" she asked.

Leo sighed. "It was just a nightmare," he said. "Just a very vivid nightmare."

Torrance said nothing.

A small smile pulled at an edge of Leo's lips. He knew she was worried, and he wanted to assure her that he was okay. A moment later, his attention was caught by the sight of Linux wagging his tail. He grinned. "Hey, boy!" he said, causing the dog to perk up then head towards him. "How are you? Have you been—ow!"

"Linux," Torrance mildly chided the dog, leading him off the bed as Leo clutched his midsection.

Leo managed a chuckle as he grimaced. "Oh, I appreciate your enthusiasm, Linux," he said as he reached down to pet the Husky, "but you are not a Chihuahua. You can't just jump on everybody like that."

Linux moved his head closer to Leo's touch. Then, he sat down so the boy could pet him conveniently.

Torrance watched them. "I am not inclined to ask you how you are doing, Leo Dooley, since Dr. Evans and your stepfather update us regularly on your condition and since I can see that you are still not very well," she said later. "But, seeing that it is the polite thing to do, I will ask you the same question everyone who had seen you has asked: how are you feeling?"

Leo grinned. "Good to see that I'm home," he remarked, amused by her statement. He shifted. "You know, your coolness factor wouldn't lessen to me even if you admit that you were freaked out by what happened. It's okay. I was scared, too."

Torrance, again, said nothing.

However, Leo could see in her eyes, steady and unfazed they may be, that he had read her correctly. He chose not to say anything about it. "You actually came to my family to ask for help," he said. "How is it? I only really know of what Chase thinks of you. Did they give you a hard time?"

"They didn't trust me and were constantly mad at me," Torrance answered. "It worked the way I thought it would, maybe even better."

Leo chuckled. Then, he frowned. "Wait. You said 'didn't' and 'were.' Past tense," he pointed out. "That means they're okay with you now?"

"We have an understanding."

"Oh. That's good. I'm glad. Understanding is good."

Torrance didn't respond. It was a while before she said something again. "That was stupid, you know. Also insane, in the full sense of the word."

"What is?"

"What you did. You stood directly in the line of fire."

Leo tried to figure out what she meant. When he did, he grinned. "To be honest, I was just really trying to get to Fielder in time to talk him out of what he was going to do. Bad timing. I ended up getting blasted," he said. He shrugged. "I guess this works, too. We got the result we wanted, right?"

"I suppose."

"Plus, didn't you say that insanity is not always bad? That it sometimes leads to something good?"

Torrance smiled. He remembered the conversation they had at Virginia.

"How's everything going out there?…Or down there, in the basement," Leo asked.

"Fine," Torrance said. "Bree Davenport has recovered well. She is hoping to get the clearance from your father to get back to normal routine sometime tonight. Adam and Chase Davenport are well, too. They've recently started bickering again."

"Oh, yeah. They're feeling better now."

"Dr. Evans left yesterday. He wanted to come back next week, but to my understanding Donald Davenport has insisted that he take a long vacation with his wife as a reward for all of his help. Your parents told him that they can take care of everything from here onward."

Leo nodded, his mind heavy with concern over his parents' well-being.

Sensing that from him, Torrance said, "They are all sleeping better, if it's any consolation. They're eating more, and I've noticed improvements in their attitudes. They're happier. They smile more. The change is gradual, but it's noticeable."

Leo forced a small smile on his face, just enough to deceive her. He didn't want Torrance to know that he felt guiltier. "How about you? How are you?" he asked instead. "I know the living-with-a-group scenario is not your style."

"It was an unwelcomed reminder, but it was necessary," Torrance said.

Leo nodded again. "Thank you. For making an exception for me," he told her sincerely.

Torrance smiled, recalling then the kindly treatment she received from Adam then Tasha and then, later on, the rest of his family. "I didn't mind. You have a family made up of good people that you wanted to save. It's a privilege of mine to help," she said. "I owe you this much."

"Well, actually, by my count, I'm the one who owes you now," Leo said with a chuckle. "There are, what, six of us that you helped?"

Torrance shook her head softly. If she was to be really, truly honest with herself, their paths crossing had caused a ripple effect that had changed her life. She didn't realize this before, but their meeting had veered her off from being content with living life alone to desiring a life with a few more people in it. He had unknowingly made her reconsider her stance, and though she was wary of it, now, she was willing to try. "I do not count favors anymore, Leo Dooley," she said. "At least not when it comes to you."

Leo's smile brightened out of appreciation.

Not lingering on that, Torrance changed the direction of their conversation. "So, I have met Kerry Perry."

"Yes you did," Leo said. "What'd you think of her?"

"She is what I have always known her to be. She's impatient, aggressive, and smart. Though, she seems to have a soft spot for you and Bree Davenport."

"Bree? She has a soft spot for Bree?"

"Yes. Bree Davenport seems to consider her as an ally, too."

"When did that happen?"

"While you were dead."

"Okay, let me rephrase that. _How_ did that happen?"

"I suppose it started six months ago, when your sister called Kerry Perry about the message you left her," Torrance said. "She repaid that kindness by constantly standing up for your sister when Stephanie George was bullying her."

Leo's brows wrinkled further. "Bullying? Stephanie was bullying Bree?"

"Emphasis on 'was.' It will be in her best interest to leave Bree Davenport alone."

Leo stared searchingly at her. Then, he sighed. "Please don't tell me you're blackmailing her."

"Do I seem to you like the type of person who would blackmail somebody?"

"Yes," Leo said, nodding.

Torrance pondered over his response with mild interest. "I've only warned her. I haven't acted on it," she admitted.

"Oh, please, Tor. Not her. She's just a pitiful teenager. She's clearly no match to you."

"She's not as willing to be as merciful to your sister as you are to her. Why should I hold back?"

"Because you're better," Leo pointed out. "Look. Bree's more than capable to win this fight on her own. She can humiliate Stephanie easily with the things she can do, but she chooses not to do it because she knows it's not fair. I know you play by your own rules, but can we make a little exemption in this one and not make more enemies?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you getting in trouble I can't pull you out from." Torrance only tilted her head questioningly, her curiosity piqued by his outspokenness. Leo sighed. "Douglas told me about the things you have done. He knows all of the jobs you've pulled. He threatened to give the records he has on hand over to the authorities." So she could understand, he said, "Tor, Douglas is Victor Krane."

Torrance's face cleared of the frown as what he said sunk in. It was a while before she reacted again. Once she did, it surprised him, because it wasn't what he was expecting. Her mouth curled into a semblance of a smirk. "He's gotten rusty," she said.

"Um…what?"

"If he had been paying attention, he would have known that I wouldn't have cared about what he knew," she said. "I would love to see him try, though."

"Okay, I'm lost now," Leo declared. "I…What? How could you not care about him knowing all of these? He could use that information as a bargaining chip to get years off his sentence."

"And I hope he does. I would like to watch that."

Leo blinked. "I've been hit on the head several times, Tor. The chances of me following all of this are much slimmer than it was before."

Torrance smiled. "The government has known all of what I've done for nearly two and a half years now," she said. "They know of every crime I've committed."

"What? How?"

"I told them."

Leo's brows furrowed more.

"As I have said before, I am not like Jessi. I cannot do wrong and not feel burdened by it. My conscience is the sort that makes me pay," Torrance explained. "Given, it took me years to come forward, but I still did it."

"But, you're not spending time in jail."

"Because I have corrected all the things I have mindlessly put out of place before. I returned everything that I took, even gave back a little more to let them know that I am sorry. I have washed my hands of what I've done," Torrance told him. "No one really wanted to pursue legal action afterwards, so I didn't have to be imprisoned. Even so, the legal system decided that it was still better for me to pay for my actions. I can stay out here, but I have to aid them for a period of time."

Leo gaped. "You work with the government?"

"They consult with me when my expertise is required."

Leo had to reel back. "How could I not have known this?"

"Because it was an irrelevant fact that wasn't terribly obvious."

"Try _barely_. There was not even any indication that you…Oh." Leo looked at her, eyes slightly wide with understanding. "Oh. That man, in New York. The FBI agent. He…he was—"

"A contact, yes. Agent Neiman, his team and I have worked together before. The same with the officer in the Mission Creek Police Department, the one who helped me fake your death, although that one was more of a personal favor. And the team who came over to take you and your siblings back here from the island. I know all of them."

Leo stared at her, torn between being impressed and being intimidated. "Wow. You're popular," he said.

"In a bad sense, I guess," Torrance said.

"So, how much longer do you have to do this?"

"One more year. I have to regularly keep in contact with them, and I have to stay within the country for so long," Torrance said.

Leo nodded. A thought caused him to look up at her fearfully. "Wait. If you work with the government, then does that mean that my siblings'—"

"Telling them of top secret projects is not what we agreed upon. I am not required to tell them anything outside matters that deal with my punishment," Torrance assured him. With a smile, she said, "Don't worry, Leo Dooley. Their secret is safe with me."

Leo reciprocated the expression, assured of what she said. "Thanks."

They lapsed into another bout of silence as Torrance adeptly assessed the events that led them there. She smiled when something occurred to her. "I think I have figured out why Kerry Perry chose you," she said.

"Oh yeah?"

Torrance nodded. "You are recklessly courageous, daring, resilient, resourceful. You love the people you love with all you've got," she said. "These are admirable qualities in any other boy, but they all come together in you."

The edges of Leo's lips slightly curled in appreciation. However, he knew he couldn't fully accept it, especially the resilience. The situation had nearly broken him to the point that he almost took his own life. He didn't see that as strength but as a weakness.

Seeing the hesitation in his reaction, Torrance asked, "You do not agree?"

There was a prolonged pause. Then, Leo said, "Kerry broke up with me."

Torrance stared at him, realizing then that bringing that up had been a mistake. "I see. I'm sorry."

Leo shrugged. "Don't be. I lied to her. Kinda had it coming." To save Torrance the guilt, he said, "But thank you. I appreciate it. That – that's the first time you complimented me. I mean, before, all you keep pointing out to me is that I have terrible focus. It's really nice to be called reckless and insane for once in a positive context."

Torrance smiled, and it considerably brightened the situation.

"And, actually, what's important right now is what will happen next," Leo said. The light expression on his face slowly diminished into nothing. "I've never asked Big D, but where are they? Darwin, Echo and Fielder?"

"In one of the spare rooms at an underground floor," Torrance answered, worried by the sudden change in his tone. "They're currently being kept in capsules. They're all powered down."

"What about the override program? Were you able to get into it?"

"Yes, Chase Davenport and I were able to open it."

"Did you manage to destroy it?"

"No. What Douglas Davenport had in his system seemed to only relay information. It's not the source. We've looked at the blueprints, and Donald Davenport suspects that it's in that wireless unit built in the simulation chamber. They're planning on returning to the island after the authorities retrieved it."

"They're not going to find it there."

"What do you mean?"

"The program. It's in this chip," Leo said, lifting up his left wrist.

The worry Torrance had over Leo's demeanor vanished when she saw what she thought was a misunderstanding. "We have looked into the entirety of the plan, Leo Dooley. The chip was just a means. Without the simulation chamber, it's not worth much."

"No, no. It's wrong. It's all wrong. The simulation chamber has nothing to do with it." He took a breath and released it exasperatedly. "Douglas must have made another mistake." He looked at her. "I can control them, Tor, all three of them, on my own. I can see what they see, hear what they hear, know how they feel. I stayed connected to them, even after I got out of that room."

Torrance turned towards the door, her mind quickly working for solutions for this new problem presented to them. "We must tell your family, then—"

"No! No. Please. They can't know," Leo pleaded, holding onto her arm. "You have to promise me that you won't tell them."

"This is important information, one that affects your well-being," Torrance reasoned firmly. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Because I don't want them to be scared of me."

"Why would they be scared of you?"

"Because I can control Darwin's, Echo's and Fielder's abilities, too. And one of those abilities is Fielder's ability to tap into my siblings' chips," Leo said. "Indirectly, I can control Adam, Bree and Chase, too."

Torrance stared at him, alarmed by the things she was learning.

Leo shook his head. "I don't want this. I don't want any of this. But I can't do anything about it now, and that's why I can't stay here. I have to leave. I have to go somewhere far. Didn't you say that you have to go to Hawaii? Maybe that should be far enough. If I come with you, maybe the signal would be so weak that it'll disconnect me from them. I just - I need time to disable it. Then I can come back." Pleadingly, he asked, "Can you help me? Will you let me go with you until I can sort this thing out?"

As Torrance looked at him, she was inclined to say yes. After all, this was what she had planned since the beginning. She came to his family for help with the goal of talking him into running away with her again once they got him back. The present circumstances actually made it easier for her, because now she didn't have to reason with him as to why he should leave his family. A reason had come up on its own that pushed him directly into her goal.

However, she knew that was not the best course for him. Hesitant as she was to admit, she had grown to care about the younger boy more than she cared about herself. She knew it was dangerous, and it _had_ proved to be dangerous, but as she had learned the things that were worth the most were ones that involved risks. Though letting him stay would mean that her own preference would be cast aside, the sting was somewhat numbed when she realized that he would be where he needed to be.

Torrance shook her head. "You have to stay with your family, Leo Dooley."

Leo's brows wrinkled. "What? No, Tor, I can't—"

"I will not tell them about the chip, as you had wished, but you need to let them know as soon as you are ready," Torrance said. Kindly, she added, "You have to trust them now. They're your family. Do not deprive them of the opportunity to be that."

"I don't want them to get hurt."

"Stay or leave, they will get hurt. Don't make the same mistake again, Leo," Torrance said. "You owe it to them to let them make the choice of what would hurt them least this time."

Leo thought about it and realized she was right. Slowly, hesitantly, he accepted that. "You sound just like my dad," he said. "He said the same thing. He told me that what's best for everybody is not my choice."

Torrance only looked at him, quite unsure how to approach what he had said. "I've meant to ask you about the note," she attempted.

"What note?"

"From the simulation. 'One plus one. This is real.'"

"Two," Leo said when he understood. "The note told me that Chase really was in the room with me."

"So I was right. The number stands for you and Chase Davenport."

"Yeah. My dad always told me how many people really were in the room with me through those equations."

Unable to go around it anymore, Torrance asked, "Your dad?"

_What is one divided by one?, _the question from a long time ago rung inside Leo's head. He smiled. "Me. He was the part of me that remained intact even when the chip messed with the rest of who I really am," he explained.

"Kind of like a voice of reason?"

"Who materialized into the person I'd listen to because I was kind of going crazy," Leo said.

Torrance heavily considered this.

"So, is there really no chance you'd let me go with you?" Leo asked.

Torrance looked up at him. She shook her head with a smile. "No," she said, "because there is something you must do first that I've never gotten a chance to do."

"What is that?"

"Finish school," Torrance answered. "You only have one more year. Perhaps you can spend that time as a break after everything that has happened."

"What about you? What are you planning to do?"

"I am going to go back to traveling," Torrance said. "I will spend that time, too, to learn new things. After all, if I am going to take you with me next year to explore the world so we could sharpen our skills, I need to be prepared."

Leo sat up. "Next year?"

"I will come back next summer, the very day you graduate," Torrance promised. "Until then, we have to part ways."

Leo nodded. He wanted to convince her to change her mind, but he knew that she had already decided on it and was set to act on it. "Why don't you take Linux with you? I don't want you to be alone," he said, glancing at his dog.

"No, Linux will only miss you. He also likes it here. He likes your family, especially Adam Davenport. I cannot take him away from you and them," Torrance said. Then, she smiled to assure him. "I will be okay, Leo Dooley."

"Okay." Leo then narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "You're not just saying all of these so I wouldn't run after you, right?" he asked. "Because my mom used to trick me like this when I was younger so I wouldn't know she wouldn't come back for a long time."

"I will not give you false hopes, Leo," Torrance told him. "I wouldn't do that to you. You're my friend."

Leo stared at her, unsure whether he had heard her right. Friend. She had never used that endearing term before with anyone. At least not as far as he could remember. He didn't even remember her calling Jessi 'friend,' and they seemed close. Now, she had made an exception, and he was it. "Friend?" he repeated. "I'm…I'm your friend."

Torrance smiled a warm smile to answer him.

"Really?" Leo contemplated over it. "I mean, usually, when I compare others to my mom, that kind of makes them not want to be friends with me anymore."

Torrance laughed.

Leo darted a look towards her. Her laugh surprised him, not only because it was the first time he had seen her do so, but because there was something in its quality that was real. It was transparent, telling him that she was happy. Though it was the comment that triggered it, he could tell that that wasn't what really made her laugh. She laughed because…because she realized that she was not alone anymore. She realized that she now had a home to come back to, that she had a family waiting there for her.

She finally had something she had never had before.

Leo smiled when he realized that. He was happy for her.

"Tasha Davenport is a good woman. It's a compliment to be compared to her," Torrance said.

"Yeah. I think so, too," Leo said. He took a deep breath. "So, I guess this is it, huh? This is the end of this whole…thing."

"The end of one thing is just a beginning of something new," Torrance said.

"You know, you and I could make serious money off the things that you say. We can put them on t-shirts or something," Leo joked.

Torrance successfully prevented herself from grinning.

A moment later, Leo said, "Ah, maybe I _could_ hang back here for a bit. I did miss my family. There are many, many, _many _things I need to fix, too. I have to make a good case with my parents, really explain to them why I had to leave. I have to talk to Adam. I need to keep watch over Bree. Chase – I need to convince him that it's okay now. He's sacrificed so much. He needs to know that it's okay to leave. He doesn't have to stay at Stanford. He can go to New York now, go to Columbia."

Torrance's brows softly creased. "Chase Davenport has never intended to go to Columbia University."

Leo frowned.

"He has applied there, but he only followed through with Stanford. This is before he even graduated," Torrance told him. "He wanted to go to New York, but, whether he was aware of it or not, it's been clear that he had never planned to leave your family. This was the case even before the letter came."

The conflicting thoughts in his head left Leo speechless.

A knock on the door snapped him out of his musings. When he and Torrance looked up, they saw his mother holding up a tray of food. "Breakfast," Tasha said with a smile to Torrance then to him. She glanced behind her before adding, "I also came with visitors."

Leo leaned slightly to the side to get a better view of the hall outside while his mother was walking towards him. There, he saw Bree and Chase, the former waiting anxiously and the latter with his back turned against the room.

Torrance got up from her seat. After shooting Leo a small smile, she walked out.

Leo was inclined to call after her since he was not sure if it would be the last time he would see her for a long time, but his attention was pulled towards the people who were now around him. Speaking with Adam had been surprisingly harder than what he was expecting, but it had gone better than it had with his parents. He had spoken to Chase before in that simulation, but he knew that the subsequent events that took place after that required another conversation between them. Beside that quick moment at the island, he had neither spoken to nor seen Bree for a little more than half a year. Honestly, he didn't know how she would accept him.

However, difficult as they situation may be, he was happy that he was home with his family.

* * *

_to be continued._


	25. Twenty-Five

_Big thanks to Glee Clue Rock 1251, AlienGhostWizard14, LabGirl2001, Lady Cougar-Trombone, and Mickey12Boo for your reviews!_

* * *

_Twenty-Five._

Chase was torn. Concentrating had never been difficult a feat for him previously, but at the moment he couldn't get his mind to settle on that one task he had to do. It frustrated him since his goal was simple: transfer all of the files that they had retrieved from Douglas' system into the flash drive his father had given him then switch the mission specialist desk into sleep mode to allow it to cool down. Yet, he couldn't even do that. At least not as quickly as he wished. His mind kept drifting into different directions, particularly to the conversation he had with his younger brother and to the girl who was currently sitting down near the capsules, working in silence to put away the laptop and the components she had used in helping them.

His talk with Leo went well. They weren't really able to speak with each other at first when he and Bree came to his room since Bree took the first turn. After their mother left them, it became apparent to him that his older sister wanted to discuss something with his brother but couldn't do so freely because he was there. Taking the cue from the awkward pauses, he decided to leave them for a while so Bree could say what she wanted to say.

Nearly an hour later, he came back to the room and found Bree sitting by Leo, both of them embracing each other with smiles on their faces.

After a few jokes and a brief exchange between the three of them, Bree left, giving her brothers the opportunity to talk.

Chase knew that his parents and his older brother hadn't been very easy on Leo, so he decided to acknowledge it. That way, he wouldn't feel like no one wanted him back. _They're glad to see you, you know, _he had told him. _You just slept through that part. _

_ Yeah. I woke up when they're already mad at me, _Leo said with a sad smile.

Chase looked at him with pity then. He was moved afterwards to reassure his brother that those ill feelings wouldn't last.

Since the simulation from days ago had allowed them to talk about the deeper things that resulted from everything that had happened, Chase found that their conversation leaned towards more casual topics. He asked Leo about the six months he was away, what had happened. He let him talk. Once or twice, he laughed as his brother recounted some of the strange people (hackers, mostly) who he encountered during their travels around the country. He smiled when Leo told him that he was in the same city as they were during the rescue mission at the collapsed mine and that he almost came there to see them.

His gut churned when he learned that his brother had nearly been victimized by a criminal, almost shipped off to a place where no one would ever find him.

_What about you? _Leo asked before finishing his own account. _What had you been doing these past six months? I mean, besides…you know. _

So he told him. He talked about everything – Stanford, his new friends. He talked about the car their father gave him for his graduation. When Leo asked, he answered in detail about Ayanna's knowledge of their family secret. He expressed his confidence in her, because he truly didn't think that Ayanna was the type of person who would betray their trust.

He also mentioned Mathai. He talked about their hopeful beginning and how that abruptly and humiliatingly ended.

When he voiced his dismay over losing the only girl who liked him, he saw an odd look on Leo's face. It seemed as if he knew something that he didn't. _What, _he prompted.

Leo just shrugged. _So, she thought Torrance was your girlfriend, huh._

Chase felt a thump on his chest. He willed himself not to blush.

If Leo saw his embarrassment, he didn't say. He didn't acknowledge it. All he said was, _Chase, can you be honest with me? Like, really, really honest. What do you think of Torrance? Do you…trust her? _

That caught him off guard. _Um, yeah. I mean, I… Yeah, I trust her, _he had answered casually, careful not to mix his opinions with his unexplored feelings towards the girl.

_That's it? You just think she's trustworthy? _

His shoulders slowly hitched upwards. _Uh… She's smart? She's a good person?_

Leo chuckled. _Why does it sound like you're asking me? We're talking about what you think of her, _he pointed out.

_Why is my opinion so important? Why do you want to know?, _he had asked back, because he didn't want to be led into giving an answer he couldn't retract.

Leo stared at him, searching through his features as he thought of what he was told. Shortly thereafter, he shrugged. _Yeah, I guess you're right. In the end, it's my opinion that matters most anyways. _

_What are you saying?_

_ I'm saying that I agree with you. It's what I think that counts, _Leo had said. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. _Do you think she's cute, though?_

_ Leo…_

Leo held up his hands. _Hey, I'm just asking. I guess you don't see her that way, which is good! You know – for me._

Though he had added up what his brother had been implying, he still skirted around it. _For you? What…what do you mean? _

_ Come on, Chase. You know what I mean. You're not into her. _Leo then smiled to himself. _This actually makes it easier for me. I've wanted to ask somebody for advice but, lately, I haven't been able to talk to anybody about it. Torrance, she's just… She's special to me. I don't know what it is about her. _He nodded with determination. _I think I'll do it. Yeah. I'll just go ahead and do it._

_ Do what?_

_ I'm going to ask her to be my girlfriend._

_ What? No!_

Leo's brows hitched in surprise.

_I mean, you can't do that, _he amended, inwardly mortified of the response that shot out of him. _What about Kerry? You're with her. _

_ Eh, she thinks I'm dead, _Leo said disinterestedly. _I don't think she'll care about who I date from this point forward._

He tried his hardest not to stare at his younger brother in disbelief. Had the time he spent away from them really made him that callous about other people's feelings? _But you guys are just friends, you and Torrance, _he reasoned instead.

_See, that's what I need help with, Chase. I want her to see me as more than a friend, _Leo said. _I was hoping you'd help me._

Chase only looked at him. Honestly, he didn't want to help him. He didn't want to admit at that moment yet the reason why he didn't want to help, but he knew it was enough for him not to do that favor for his brother.

_What, you're not cool with this? _Leo asked.

_No, no! I mean, it's your choice. You can like who you want to like…I guess, _he had said. _If you like Torrance, you know, that's…that's your prerogative. _

Leo studied him for a long while. Then, he busted out in a fit of laughter. _Oh, I knew it! _Leo cried out. _You have a crush on her!_

_What?, _he asked, confused. _What do you mean?_

_ I was messing with you! I was trying to see how you would react. Torrance is my best friend. I don't like her _that _way! _Then, with a conniving grin, he said, _But, apparently, _you_ do._

As Chase took a long look at him, he realized that his brother had skillfully brought out what he had been trying to hide. He used jealousy to get him to falter, to topple over and reveal that he had developed certain feelings for the emerald-eyed girl. This caused him to feel embarrassed, which soon after morphed into anger. _You little doof—_

_ No, no, no, no, no! Chase, Chase, Chase! _Leo had cowered instinctively, laughing while holding up his hands defensively in front of him as his brother advanced towards him with a scowl and balled fists. _You can't hit me! I'm still injured!_

Chase glowered at him, fuming. He was inclined to argue more but decided it wasn't worth it.

After seeing that he was safe, Leo lowered down his hands. _Look, I know you're upset with me, but I just needed to know that you care about her._

_ Why?_

_ Because Torrance is the kind of person who can spot insincerity from a mile away. She knows when you're not being honest with her. She also knows when you are, and even if she won't admit it, she values that._ Leo smiled. _It may not be a bad idea to be honest with her now, Chase. _

_ Why?_

_ Because she's leaving. _

Chase looked up from the mission specialist desk then gazed discreetly at Torrance. Still preoccupied with her personal task, she remained oblivious to her surroundings. She didn't even know he was staring at her.

_She's leaving. _Chase didn't know exactly what he felt for her, and that made it harder for him to pinpoint how he viewed her impending departure. He admired certain things about her, that much he knew, and maybe that was enough to justify the anxiety he was feeling. She was intelligent, straightforward, and was generally not given into lying. She was very responsible, and though she would never own up to it, she was caring.

Those were probably her best traits, being responsible and caring. The warmth she showed towards his younger brother (and, by extension, towards them) all of those months, though buried underneath thick layers of an ice cold persona, automatically made her a friend in his sight.

Friend. That sounded off.

Maybe that wasn't the right word.

She seemed to have that effortless ability to see into him, and the way he responds to it certainly wasn't platonic. He didn't know why, but the knowledge that he couldn't hide many things from her made him feel weak and invincible at the same time. With her, he could be frightened and fearless, be pragmatic and be lost in the catastrophe of his own thoughts and emotions.

He didn't have to pretend with her, and that stirred within him something new and puzzling.

"Are you sure you don't need help with that?" Chase heard his father ask Torrance when he walked into the lab.

Torrance looked up and reciprocated the smile. "I am sure," she said.

His father looked at her for a while. Then, he said, "Okay, well, dinner should be ready in fifteen minutes. We'd love for you to join us."

There was a flicker of hesitation in Torrance's eyes that clued Chase into the fact that the rest of his family didn't know yet of her plans. It passed quickly. "Thank you, Donald Davenport," she said.

"It's the least we could do for all the help," his father said. Turning to him, he asked, "Chase, what about you? Have you finished yet?"

Chase resumed his work on the desk, accomplishing what he needed to accomplish promptly. "Just a few more minutes."

"Okay. When you're done, just head on upstairs, alright?"

Chase nodded.

His father walked off to the elevators and was gone soon after.

It wasn't long until Chase finished transferring the files. With a few clicks, he put the desk into sleep mode next, and that completed his task.

He hesitated to walk towards her at first, but the thought of him regretting something he didn't do later on moved him to take the chance. His mind blanked out of nervousness, and it only worsened when she glanced up at him, but he forced himself to make the least bit of sense just so he could talk to her. With all his might, he pulled up a small smile on his face. Thankfully, it proved sufficient to ease some of the nerves. "You should join us for dinner, you know," he said, inwardly surprised at how steady his voice sounded. He took a big leap by taking a seat beside her. "Tasha's a great cook. She makes the most amazing stuff."

Torrance smiled down at the wires in her hand as she pushed them into a case, but she said nothing in reply.

Taking a more serious tone, the smile on his face vanished. "Mr. Davenport told us what you did. Thank you for sending somebody to rescue us."

"It's not necessary, Chase Davenport. I did what I ought to do," Torrance said.

"Still. Thank you."

Torrance lifted her searching eyes up to him. When she found that he was being sincere, she just said, "You're welcome."

Chase nodded as she pulled the bag and the cases containing her personal computer system nearer to her. His eyes wandered around the lab. "This house is big enough that having another person live in it won't be a problem," he stated. "Especially now that I'm living at the dorms, there's more room."

Torrance took a glimpse of their surroundings. "I suppose so."

Chase smiled sadly when he understood what she didn't say. "But this is not big enough for you, is it?"

Torrance softly shook her head. "The world is my home. Out there is where I'm supposed to be."

"You don't have to be alone, you know," he said after a pause. "It's okay to be with people who care about you. They could be your home."

"Caring about me is not an advantage," Torrance answered factually. "I don't imagine anyone would want to take the risk."

"Why not?"

"Because people who come too close to me only get hurt. I'm a hazard; Leo Dooley knows it," she said. Seeing the expression on his face, she said, "Do not feel pity for me. This is just a fact. It's something that I've learned to live with."

Chase felt guilty even if she was forgiving. He didn't want for her to see that he was sorry for her. He didn't want her to be insulted, because that wasn't his intention. So, instead on dwelling on that and potentially worsening his blunder, he just asked, "Does that mean you're leaving?"

A ghost of a smile appeared on her face. "I suspect you already know the answer to that even before we began this discussion," she said.

Chase said nothing.

"I appreciate the kindness that you and your family had shown me, Chase Davenport, but I have to leave. I have commitments I have to fulfill, vows I have to pay. Douglas Davenport is no longer a threat to your family. My purpose has been completed," Torrance said. "I cannot linger here. I have no reason to stay."

Chase stared into her eyes, moved to know her thoughts. He wondered what had led her to accept aloneness so easily. She said she feared hurting others, but did she mean it? Did she really believe she would be the reason for their pain?

Soon, he found the answer: she had been deceived into thinking that walking the world alone was her lot in life, just as he had believed that his only use was to carry the burdens of others.

A painful sensation squeezed inside his chest. Was it pity? Was it sadness? Was it empathy? Honestly, he didn't know. All he was aware of was that he didn't want her to feel alone ever again.

In a moment of bravery, he leaned forward and kissed her.

There was an emptiness at first, as if the force that moved him to do what he did drained immediately and ceased to exist. He was holding his breath in a space of darkness, something both frightening and thrilling to him. However, when she responded by kissing him back, the emptiness quickly filled with many impossible things. It pulled him upwards, far up into the clouds and into incomprehensible heights, where all the colors collided loudly with each other.

His heart leapt vigorously at the sight.

When he drew back, he gazed deeply into her green eyes. "Stay," he asked her. "This is where you belong."

Torrance only looked at him, her eyes soft. She said nothing.

The distance between them increased as the sound of the elevator opening rang through the lab. Torrance got up, picked up the bag and the cases, and then transported them closer to the couch where the rest of her belongings were. "Hey, Torrance, I think Linux is out of food," Adam said as he came into the room. "You mind making a quick run to the store with me and Ayanna? I don't know which one to get for him."

Torrance nodded.

"Cool. Chase, Bree's looking for you," Adam told him. "Something about an application deadline or something."

Chase nodded at him in acknowledgement.

Adam turned to leave, Torrance following alongside him wordlessly. Soon, the two of them were gone.

It took Chase another moment to realize that he hadn't quite caught his breath yet. When he did, he felt giddy, both with the feel of air in his lungs and the beat of life pounding through his veins. He thought about the kiss, thought about her. He savored the sweet memory rushing back.

It was then that it hit him: first kiss.

Torrance was his first kiss.

Chase looked around the lab and saw everything in a different light. Glancing back, he caught sight of the capsules, particularly his, which he was sitting directly in front of.

A warm smile came to his face. First kiss, with the girl he truly cared about. And it happened in the place he considered home.

Joyously, his heart leapt again.

* * *

_to be continued._


	26. Twenty-Six

_Many thanks to Glee Clue Rock 1251, Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, and AlienGhostWizard14 for your reviews! My apologies for not being able to send you guys a response! _

_This chapter has been proofread, but as always, there will be things that I overlooked. Please let me know if you find any through either a review or a PM. I'll be more than happy to correct them. :)_

_The penultimate chapter._

* * *

_Twenty-Six._

Two weeks had passed since the four came back home, and things were gradually getting better. Given, the relationship between the remaining members of the household and Leo was still strained, and their conversations still oftentimes leaned towards being awkward, but it was improving in its own time. Chase and Bree were the ones who were quicker to forgive, but since Chase had to go back to the dorms, Leo only had Bree to rely on with readjusting to his old home life. Adam also helped, and he was willing, but feelings of hurt and anger, especially whenever he remembered what everyone had gone through in the recent months after his little brother's 'death,' resurfaced occasionally, and that prevented him from being as cheerful and open as he was before whenever he was dealing with him.

Leo understood this, though, so he had learned to take the good when it was there and adapt to the bad when it presented itself.

Plus, Leo knew where Adam was coming from, mostly because of the conversation he had with his stepfather not long ago. Donald told his stepson everything, including things that Tasha wouldn't – save for the private conversation he had with his wife regarding those divorce papers, which were, true to her words, now nowhere to be found.

When he had finished speaking, Leo just said quietly, "I guess saying I'm sorry won't fix this, will it?"

"No, maybe not for some time. But it's a start," Donald had replied. Then, remembering what Torrance once revealed to them, he asked, "Just tell me this – if Douglas hadn't captured you and we hadn't had rescued you, would you have come home?"

Leo shied from answering at first. Then, he shook his head.

"Is it because you thought you belonged out there with Torrance rather than here with us?"

"I just didn't want to mess up everybody's lives again. Coming back would just mean trouble for everybody."

"Change that thinking," Donald told his stepson. "We're upset with you, Leo, very much – but what you've just said is one of the biggest lies you could tell yourself."

"I know," Leo acknowledged remorsefully. "It's not my right to decide what's good for you or for them."

Donald agreed, but he allowed his silence to say that. He did feel pity for his child, so to allay the heavy mood clouding the room at that time, he asked, "Did you really hack into my computer last week?"

Leo was obviously bewildered by the change of topic, but he still answered. "Yes."

"Did you have a hard time?"

"Yes. I was dealing with Atkin."

"But you got past him."

"Yes."

There was a pause. Then, "Great job." Donald turned then left the room. "Don't do it again," he said on his way out.

Tasha seemingly was the hardest to appease. She was constantly distant when it came to her son, and she still had yet to sit down with him for an in-depth talk. However, though she was this way towards him, unbeknown to Leo, she was the most thankful out of everyone in the household that he came back. There was never a day that she didn't smile whenever she was by herself and remembered that he was there, or a night when her heart didn't fill with joy as she looked at the family picture sitting on her nightstand and know that she had all of the kids in that photo to love and see grow again.

She was happy, and everybody was, too – even if it didn't seem like it most of the time.

However, along with this happiness, there was also some sadness.

A few hours after having dinner with the family, Torrance showed up in Leo's room to bid him goodbye. She led Linux into the room, told him to take care of the family and his owner, and then petted him. Afterwards, she stood up. Before she could say anything, Leo hugged her tightly. She was surprised at first, but soon she hugged him back. "If you're ever in any trouble, Tor – any trouble at all –, just call me. Or even if you just want to talk about Morning Light," he said as he disengaged.

Torrance smiled. "I will not bother you with trivial things, Leo Dooley," she said.

"You should. Bothering each other with trivial things is what best friends do," he said.

Torrance nodded. "Okay."

After she assured him that she would be back, and after he assured her that she always had a place and people to come back to there in Mission Creek, Torrance left the mansion, vanishing into the silence of the night.

Leo missed her very much. It was the first time after months of being together that he was where she was not, and though the two of them didn't see eye to eye on some things, he missed hearing her speak her thoughts, her objections, and even her innocent comments that at times came across as insults. He also missed the hacking tips she would give him whenever she saw the right opportunity.

The rest of the family missed having her around, too. Donald and Tasha once voiced their surprise and even slight dismay that she didn't stay because they said they wouldn't have minded opening their house to her. Adam and Bree have on a few occasions talked about her, laughing back on how awkward she and they were towards each other when they met weeks prior.

Chase seemed…lost without her, and Leo was quick to pick up on it. He saw it on the morning when they found out she left, and he could still see it now, right at that moment as he and his siblings waited for their father while he configured the new control panel that regulated the capsules where the sleeping forms of Darwin, Echo, and Fielder were. Chase stood in front of Fielder's capsule, staring down in empty space, his mind obviously running with many thoughts. He had that same look on his face, as if he understood why she left but didn't at the same time.

There was also a deep shadow of hurt set on his features.

Leo got up from his seat then slowly walked towards Chase, the sound of Bree laughing at Adam's joke regarding the homework she brought there with her ringing behind him. "She didn't leave because she got scared, you know," he told his older brother even if he didn't know the full scope of what had transpired between them. "It's also not because she doesn't like you."

Chase looked at him morosely. "How would you know?" he asked.

Leo shrugged. "I told you, the girl is brutally honest. If she doesn't like you, you would've known immediately," he said. "The last time you guys talked, were there any indication at all that she doesn't like you?"

Chase thought on the question. The only answer coming back to him was the feeling he had when she kissed him back. A small smile pulled on his lips. "No," he said.

"See?" Leo said. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "She's coming back, Chase. You'll have a chance to talk to her again."

Chase nodded, comforted by that.

"You know, it just came to me," Adam spoke as he and Bree got up from their seats to join them, "you're still short, Leo."

Leo and Chase looked up at him with similar frowns. "And you're still _tall_, Adam," Leo said, somewhat annoyed. "What's the point of this conversation?"

Bree's mouth popped open as she chuckled, looking up at Adam to see his response to the gutsy reply their younger brother gave him. Chase only crossed his arms and quirked his brows at him, giving him a 'see, that's what you get' look.

Adam, meanwhile, just gaped at Leo, oddly impressed. "Oh. Well, _excuse_ me," he said, backing off from that topic.

"Okay, that should just about do it," Donald said, clicking on one more button before walking over to his children.

"What'd you do, Mr. Davenport?" Bree asked.

"Oh, I just made sure that their energy sources wouldn't burn out as they stay in there," Donald said, nodding ahead. "I also had to reprogram the capsules a bit. These ones were made for bionic humans and not androids, so a few things had to be switched out so these three wouldn't short or malfunction. Thankfully, we recovered more information about them from Douglas' computer. It made the job much easier."

Leo looked at Darwin, Echo, and Fielder with sympathy. He felt bad seeing them this way, because although they had been merciless and harmful, he knew that those weren't who they were. At least he believed they weren't. They were modeled after Adam, Bree, and Chase, and his siblings, when not under the control of a program, weren't bad people.

"So, how long are they staying here?" Adam asked.

"Not really sure," Donald said. "It all depends on how the test will go three days from now."

"Test?" Bree asked.

"We're gonna let them wake up and see how they would react to us," Chase said. When he saw the unsure expressions on his older siblings' faces, he explained, "Look, it may not be so bad. We've retrieved that unit from the simulator room and had destroyed the programs in it. We've also gone into their chips. That Override Code wouldn't completely delete, but as it stands right now, it's just like an empty folder. It shouldn't operate anymore." He shrugged. "For all we know, they could turn out to be really nice kids without it."

Leo hadn't had the heart yet to tell his family about what the chip on his wrist could enable him to do, but with that news he began thinking that maybe it wasn't necessary anymore. If the program was turned into something useless, maybe he didn't have to worry about chip.

The thought that Darwin, Echo, and Fielder would come to with no recollection of who he was and the things they had done for him saddened him a bit, but he knew that that would work best for him and them. They deserved to be free, too – just like how his siblings were.

"Yeah," Leo said in agreement with Chase. "Actually, they were. Without Douglas, they'll be good."

"How did Douglas get them to attack, anyways?" Donald asked him. "Is it that override program? Or was it a form of the Triton app?"

"Neither of those had anything to do with them being aggressive towards you guys," Leo said with a glance at his siblings. "If he wasn't lying to me when he told me this, Douglas said that he had programmed their memories to recognize certain people as threats. That was why they attacked when they saw you."

"Their memories?" Donald asked. "So does that mean that we can access their drives and delete that data?"

Leo shrugged. "I guess so."

A ponderous expression came over Donald's face. "Huh. I'm going to have to look into that later tonight," he said. "Because if we can do that, that will make the test less of a threat."

"What about you?" Bree asked Leo. "I mean, I know the project had conditioned them to be protective of you. Would reprogramming their chips have a bad effect on how they view you? We don't want them being friendly towards us then suddenly snapping and being crazy again when they see you."

"Honestly, I don't know. Probably not," Leo said. "Worse thing that can happen is that they won't remember me. Even that's not too bad."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see when they come to," Donald said, observing the three subjects in front of them. He glanced down at his watch. "We've been gone long enough. All of us should probably head upstairs. Tasha should be coming home any minute now from work, and we have those things we're heating up in the oven for lunch. We should go."

Bree turned on her heels then led the way towards the elevator, with Adam then Chase right behind her. Donald followed close.

Leo took a step forward to follow them but stopped. Looking up and seeing that there was enough distance between the five of them, he turned back towards the capsules. "I don't know if you can hear me while you're sleeping," he told Darwin, Echo, and Fielder quietly, "but I hope you can understand why we have to do all of this. Don't think I betrayed you. It's just that, you're not gonna be happy with someone already having picked your friends and your enemies for you. You have the right to that choice." A weak but sincere smile came to his face. "You deserve that much."

"Leo!" Chase called out, his voice echoing through the long hall. "Where did you go?"

Leo glanced up towards the direction of the elevator. Then, he placed a hand on the glass of Echo's capsule before jogging off. "I'm coming," he answered.

"You move like a snail," Adam commented with a grin as his brother hobbled towards them to join them.

Leo shot him an unhappy look as he stepped into the elevator with his family, who were either smiling or grinning at what Adam had said.

When the doors to the elevators closed, the light on that floor dimmed down, the sensors picking up the lack of movement. As darkness descended upon the room, several things lit up, like the neon linings lighting the path from the tunnel, the control panel, and the edges of the capsules' bases. Darkness also laid bare the mostly undetectable blue glow of Darwin's eyes under his closed lids.

Though the three of them weren't fully conscious, Darwin, Echo, and Fielder still picked up the sounds around them. They heard every conversation, every observation, and every comment exchanged and given by the people who had come there, though blearily so. What Leo told them was the first to fully register to them, mostly because he was one of the people whose voices they were the most attuned to.

They listened to him, even if he didn't know. Despite the new surroundings and new people terrifying them, they trusted him, because, as he knew them to be good people, they knew he was good, too. He cared about them, even if he didn't understand them completely.

That was enough to start with and was all they needed to know.

As these thoughts lulled Darwin, Echo, and Fielder back into a peaceful sleep, floors above them, Leo felt the same warm spark within him. It took away the wide grin on his face, which had come about from a story Chase was telling them. He recognized that feeling, and he knew exactly its source.

He forced a smile on his face as his family turned to look at him after Adam asked him a question, not wanting them to know that he was alarmed by what he had found out.

He was right. The chip ran independently from any of the programs found on Douglas' system—and it worked well by itself.

* * *

_to be continued._


	27. Twenty-Seven

_Thank you, thank you, thank you to Lady Cougar-Trombone, LabGirl2001, and AlienGhostWizard14 for the review last chapter! You guys have no idea how tremendously I appreciate the time you have taken to let me know your thoughts. _

_After a little over than a year and a half, we had finally come to the end of this whole trilogy. This has been an amazing experience for me. This story holds so much memory. It was also surprising, because it really was just part of a personal challenge - and it ended up as the first trilogy I've ever completed. _

_The best part of all of this was that I got to share it with readers who are just amazing. I've received so much support from everybody (and believe me when I say I needed it), and there's actually a number of you who had been reading and reviewing unfailingly since the beginning (you guys know who you are ;) ). _

_I don't know how to communicate my thankfulness to everyone who had expressed their thoughts or even just read along because I seriously can't put it into words. _

_The best I can manage right now is my sincerest thanks. I hope you all enjoyed the ride._

_This _may_ not be the end of the series. There's a one-shot waiting to be worked on in the vault that will spring from something that happens in this chapter. _

_As a final note for this, I just want to say thanks again to everybody, and please enjoy!_

_Have a great rest of the weekend!_

_\- Shaine_

* * *

_Twenty-Seven._

**_Four years later..._**

Leo sat back on the couch and watched Chase with quirked brows as he readjusted his tie in front of the mirror for what seemed to be the twentieth time. He guessed some things just don't change. At twenty-one years old, his brother still had over-obsession as a nervous tick. He had been very nitpicky with his personal appearance since the day began, and it only worsened after they got into their suits a few hours ago. It started with the boutonniere, which he constantly adjusted as if it was falling off his lapel (which it wasn't) until their mother assured him that it was fine and that there was nothing he had to worry about.

Now, he seemed to have moved on to the tie, which, like the boutonniere, was absolutely okay.

He still didn't understand why his older brother was this nervous. Adam, who was the groom and whose wedding day it was, wasn't even that anxious.

He wondered if it was because of the role he would be playing in the wedding. It must be. Ever since Adam asked Chase to be his best man, Chase had been a little…_high-strung_. He wasn't at first. Actually, he was surprised and quite suspicious of their older brother's offer to him. However, when the reality sunk in that yes, Adam did want him to be the best man, and yes, he did have the responsibility of helping him with the wedding and everything else that traditionally preceded it, he became increasingly stressed and panicked.

It became so obvious that Bree once told him over the phone that Alexa, Ayanna's cousin and her maid of honor, had joked during one of the rehearsals that she felt unappreciative and negligible of her privilege whenever she compared herself with how seriously Chase took his duty.

Leo knew that the other members of the entourage found his older brother's behavior a little odd, but Chase had gotten many things done and had done his part in making this wedding the best for Adam and Ayanna. To him, that was good.

Although, he wished he could have given his brother more help to ease his nerves a bit, but he couldn't. For one, his being alive was still one of those things that were only known to a very select few. Ayanna wanted to make some sort of a compromise since she and Adam really wanted him to be in the wedding, but he knew that any scenario including him would result into the sacrifice of the attendance of many family and friends, all of whom the couple clearly needed to be there, so he told them not to worry about it. He was content with being in that private room where he could see the lakeside wedding from three stories up, wearing the same suit that the rest of the groomsmen were wearing, a hidden member of the wedding party.

Another reason why he hadn't been able to help was because he had been out of the country and had only really had the chance to come back twice after the engagement was announced.

After being rescued from the island, he heeded his loved ones' advice to go back to school. So as not to stir up trouble and controversy, however, he told his parents that he wanted to continue in a more private setting. They understood when he explained. His parents, particularly his father, pulled a few strings, and he ended up with an accredited tutor who didn't mind helping him pull through with what he had already missed that year and who didn't mind keeping his being alive a secret.

The following year, he and Bree graduated high school. Though he didn't get to walk the stage like Bree, he was happy with just watching his sister experience it, even if it was from afar.

His diploma came through the mail nearly a week after that. He came home that day with the crisp brown envelope sitting on the coffee table—and Torrance waiting on the couch.

He was so glad to see her that she didn't even have the time to greet him or congratulate him. He ran towards her, hugged her, and spun her around in excitement. Torrance only laughed then told him she missed him, too, after he put her back down.

They stayed in Mission Creek for two weeks. Torrance used that time to rest from the great deal of travel she had done, which, after his repeated urgings, she told him in full detail. It also gave her and Chase the opportunity to speak. Meanwhile, he packed what he needed. He had told his parents and his siblings months beforehand what he had planned to do after he finished school. It was obvious his parents wanted him to stay behind and apply for college, but after giving it serious thought and setting some rules that must never be broken, they decided to let him go.

So, for nearly three and a half years now, he had been traveling to different states and countries (mostly the latter) with Torrance, improving his skills in technology and programming while also working as one of Davenport Industry's 'ghost hackers'—a unique job description that his father only assigned to both of them.

Leo sat up on the couch as Chase moved on from adjusting his tie to frowning down on his cuff links. "You keep doing that, your suit is going to fall apart when you walk in," he told him.

Chase looked at him through the mirror, annoyance but also worry etched on his features.

Leo grinned. "Chase. Chill. It's all going to be okay," he said, leaning back on his seat. "You have to relax."

Chase turned his attention back on the cuff links but surrendered with a sharp sigh soon after. "How can I?" he asked, swiveling around to face him. "Today's the big day."

"_Adam's_ the one getting married, and yet he found the time to play one round of hide and seek with Ayanna's little cousins earlier."

"But that's Adam. You're talking about a guy who would turn a dangerous mission into play time if he felt like it," Chase pointed out. His frown deepened with something came to him. "By the way, what are we going to do if a mission alert comes in during the wedding or the reception?"

Leo shrugged. "We've already talked about it last week," he said, referencing to his relatively fledgling team. "We got you covered."

That was another reason why he hadn't been able to participate in the wedding as much as he had wanted to. Even after they were reprogrammed, Darwin, Echo, and Fielder only responded most readily to him – which didn't surprise him after he found out what he did.

When they were reactivated from their sleep four years ago, they recognized Adam, Bree, and Chase, but only as the people who they were modeled after. Actually, even if they had no clue as to who they really were, Darwin, Echo, and Fielder were very friendly towards his siblings once they started speaking to them. It was kind of like how his siblings were towards the people they met when he brought them to school for the first time.

Finding the absence of aggression and deception a satisfying result, his stepfather introduced the three to the covert line of work that Adam, Bree, and Chase did and soon proposed that they be trained to do the same. Darwin, Echo, and Fielder were willing, but over time, it became apparent that they weren't inclined to listen to him or the other three teens.

When his father brought that to his attention, Leo suggested that he come home from Sweden and take over. His father only laughed at that, pointing out that if he couldn't teach them, he also probably wouldn't be able to, but he insisted, and his father didn't have any choice but to let him.

To his father's surprise, they paid attention and even strove to improve.

In fact, their trainings had gone well enough that the four of them were assigned as the Beta Team last year, with him as the team leader and Fielder as the mission leader. They hadn't gone on too many missions yet, both as a precaution and since Adam, Bree, and Chase were usually able to go and complete whatever came their way, but he wouldn't complain about it. He was just happy that he had a team of his own.

At times, however, he felt like he cheated to get it, but it wasn't his fault. He did what he could to access the chip so he could disconnect from the three, but he had yet to find success. He almost came clean to his family and to Torrance at one point, almost told them the truth about the small, powerful object wired along his veins and the lie that the deletion of the override program had forever nulled its use, when Fielder approached him, shaking his head. _Don't tell them, _Fielder had said.

_But you know this is not fair, _he had replied. _To you three _or _me. You deserve to live with free will. _

_ We do. This is why we're asking that you just leave things as they are. You and our father are the only ones we had since the beginning. Now that he's not here anymore, you're the only one we have left. You're our only family. Don't take that away from us._

_ But I don't want to always be in your heads. That's not right, _he insisted. _And, I'm sorry, man, but as much as I like you and your siblings? I don't want you to be constantly in my head either. I kinda want to have my own space up here. _

Fielder had grinned at that. _Don't worry. We don't have any access to your thoughts anymore. _

_ What do you mean?_

_ Without the control panel and the simulator unit, we have no way of connecting to you. The only way, really, that we'll know now what you're thinking is by observing you or asking you directly. _

_ But…I'm still connected to all of you._

Fielder hitched a shoulder. _That's the nature of the chip, _he had said. _Though, to my understanding, you can disable certain abilities that come with it if you want. _

_ Disable? How do I do that?_

_ You train yourself to. _Fielder pointed to his left wrist and added, _That chip is still a chip. It's not like the ones that the six of us have, but it's similar in that it's connected to your nervous system. If you concentrate hard enough, and if you keep practicing, you'll be able to control it instead of it controlling you._

He thought deeply on that. _I don't know how to do it. I don't know where to start, _he admitted. _I wasn't born with this like you guys. _

Fielder only smiled confidently. _We can help you. _

Leo smiled at the memory. Learning had definitely been something he and his team did together. As he was training them, they were also training him.

Chase frowned when he saw the expression on his brother's face, intrigued by it. "What," he said.

Leo looked up at him. "What do you mean what?" he asked, confused.

Chase straightened his collar. "You were smiling," he said.

"Oh." Leo just shrugged, leaving it at that.

Chase glanced at him through the mirror, finding the answer unsatisfactory "I've been meaning to ask you about those nightmares you were having," he said casually. "You haven't been talking about it."

"Eh, they're not too bad as they were before. They're not as frequent either. The worst one I had this week was when I dreamt of Principal Perry chasing George Clooney down Rue de Paradis in a racecar," Leo responded, grinning as he made the joke.

Chase was unamused.

"No, seriously, I'm okay," Leo amended, knowing his older brother asked out of his worry for him. "It's just something I've gotten used to. Torrance helps me when the really bad ones come."

"Have you considered taking a break for a few months? Stay back here in California?" Chase asked. "We can help you, too, if you're close by."

"Either way, I'm still going to have them." Leo smiled. "I appreciate the suggestion, though."

Chase nodded, a little dismayed by the half refusal. "By the way, how's Torrance doing?" he asked.

Leo narrowed his eyes. "You talk to your girlfriend all the time, Chase," he pointed out. "Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're the one who just got back from a seven-month long business trip in Paris with her," Chase said after turning around.

Leo shot him an inquisitive look. "You were there with us almost every weekend," he pointed out. "Fielder always takes you – which, by the way, I've been meaning to say, shame on both you and Big D, using my team's mission leader like that."

"But he said he didn't mind," Chase said. "And we needed to be there. Mr. Davenport needs me to learn the business and get a firsthand experience in opening an overseas branch. I had to be present for our new location in France."

"Hm. How convenient. You suddenly get so involved in the company when it's establishing a branch in the most romantic place in the world and when it takes your girlfriend there."

Chase rolled his eyes with a huff. "Whatever. Interpret it however you want, but the truth is that I was usually there because of the company."

Leo smiled a wide, sly smile. "_Just _the company?"

"Leave me alone," Chase said resignedly, walking over to the windows. He gazed ahead towards the lake, a part of its shore decorated with pristine white chairs, white carpet lining the aisle, beautiful soft pink and white roses, and guests laughing and talking to one another. From where he stood, he could hear, though it was muffled, the string quartet playing a classic piece as everybody waited.

The scene took his breath away.

"I just asked how she was doing because both of us had been very busy these past two weeks that we haven't spoken," Chase said as he watched the people below, his tone ridden with guilt. He looked at Leo. "Will she be coming today?"

"You know she will," Leo said. He checked his watch. "She should be coming out of the airport right now. She may be late to the wedding, but she'd definitely be there for the reception."

"Okay," Chase said, turning back to pace the room.

Leo stood up, smirking. "Can you believe it? Adam will be a married man in about an hour."

Chase scoffed good-naturedly. "Yeah," he said. "It's weird."

Leo laughed. "He's officially going to be Mr. Davenport after today," he said, "with a Mrs. Davenport living with him."

Chase chuckled.

The door to the room suddenly opened with a loud crack, causing Leo and Chase to look up alertly.

Bree was somewhat taken aback by her brothers' stares when she poked her head into the room. "Oh. Didn't mean to scare both of you," she said, the flowy material of her long, pearly pink bridesmaid dress swaying in with her as she half-stepped inside. "Chase, Mom has been looking for you. We're about to start. The coordinator said it's time for you and Adam to go up there."

"Adam's downstairs already?" Chase asked.

"Yeah." Bree then smirked. "You should hurry before he goes out the door. You should see him. He's a nervous wreck."

Leo grinned. "Did you take a picture?"

"Picture?" Bree repeated, sounding insulted. "I took a video."

Leo nodded approvingly, a similar devious smile on his face.

Chase started towards the door but stopped to look back. "Are you sure you're going to be okay here by yourself?" he asked.

Leo's grin turned into a warm smile. He nodded. "Yeah. I'm sure," he said.

"Okay," Chase said.

"See you after the wedding," Bree told Leo.

Leo only watched as Bree stepped back to give Chase room as he pulled the door close. Their footfalls and the light rustling of Bree's dress echoed through the walls outside soon after, the sound gradually decreasing into whispers until it disappeared to nothing.

He slowly walked towards the door to lock it.

He chuckled sadly as he turned the bolt on the knob. Adam, his older brother, was getting married. It didn't seem like it had been that long since he first stepped out there in the world, meeting new people and getting to experience what living life outside was really like. Now, he was going to start a new chapter, discovering the world again with the love of his life on his side.

Leo really wished he could be out there with him and his family for that first step.

A hush swept upon the small crowd outside, a light, sweet breeze blowing across the lake in its wake. There was the mutter of guests settling into their seats. Then, the first note of the procession tune crisply hit the springtime air.

Leo headed back to the window and watched. He saw his parents sitting in the crowd, his mother already dabbing a handkerchief underneath her eyes and his father giving her an encouraging smile, his hand holding hers. Adam, with Chase by his side, had a small smile on his face, and through it, Leo could tell that he was terribly nervous – but also overwhelmingly happy. Not long after, he saw Bree walk in with Robert, one of Adam's friends from work, right before Alexa came in.

Leo placed his hands behind his back as he looked over his family, his right hand clasping his left wrist. There, he felt the anomaly under his skin: the chip that had forever changed his life.

At a certain angle, the future was frightening, not only for him but also for the people he cared about. There existed many uncertainties, many undefined factors that he knew might turn into hurdles as they head onward. Yet, even with these, he wasn't scared. In spite of everything that happened after he opened that red envelope years ago, he and his family survived. Life went on, and now they were all at the threshold of something new and exciting.

Above all, he came out of it stronger.

Leo decided, as the clock struck the twelfth second of that minute, that the future, although unknown, was something to look forward to.

_END OF STORY THREE._

_END OF STORY. _


End file.
